Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

YORKSHIRE WATER AUTHORITY (RIVER DERWENT) BILL

Read a Second time and committed.

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL (HASLAR BRIDGE) BILL

Ordered,
That the Hampshire County Council (Haslar Bridge) Bill be re-committed to the Committee of Selection.

Ordered,
That it be an Instruction to the Committee of Selection to refer the said Bill to a new Committee.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Oral Answers to Questions — SOCIAL SERVICES

Medical Appeal Tribunals

Miss Richardson: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether, in the light of the views expressed by the National Insurance Commissioner in paragraph 10 of Decision No. R (I) 14/75, now published as a guideline that a medical appeal tribunal is not a forum for discussion of the employers' system of work or the conditions in the factory, chemicals used, &c., whether or not the process in the factory had been changed, he will take action to amend the powers of medical appeal tribunals.

The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Stanley Orme): I do not think there is any evi-

dence to suggest that medical appeal tribunals lack the powers necessary to discharge their statutory responsibilities, but if any were to be forthcoming. I would certainly be prepared to look at it.

Miss Richardson: I am grateful for the sympathetic response of my right hon. Friend. I am sure he will he aware that I am raising this not because it concerns a constituent of mine but because it forms a guideline. Does he agree that if medical appeal tribunals were allowed to point to factory conditions that might be producing new diseases it might be helpful in terms of safety and in terms of the discovery of new diseases? Will he say whether he will keep his eye on the position to make sure that action is taken at the appropriate time?

Mr. Orme: Questions relating to industrial health and safety hazards are the responsibility of the Health and Safety Commission. I would always be willing to consider asking the Industrial Advisory Council for advice whether additions should be made to the list of prescribed diseases.

Mr. Loyden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the point being made by my hon. Friend is that tribunals, in that sense, might form a link between industrial diseases and the very vague situation that may arise after the time of contact? Is he aware that in the docks industry, where every poison and dangerous material is handled, there is certainly a vagueness about health and safety measures? The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) is making is that tribunals could well play a positive rôle in this connection.

Mr. Orme: I have looked at the work of the tribunals in this regard and I do not believe that they are unsympathetic. They can point the way in certain cases but, of course, they cannot base a judgment on one case alone. They have to have several cases in order to have the matter looked at.

Doctors (Emigration)

Mr. MacGregor: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the official estimate of emigration of doctors born in the United Kingdom


or the Republic of Ireland for the latest available 12 months; and how many of these are of registrar, senior registrar and consultant status.

Miss Fookes: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the net emigration figure of doctors born in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland to: (a) the EEC, (b) the developing Commonwealth, (c) other developing countries and (d) the United States of America and Canada, in each of the last three years for which figures are available.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. David Ennals): I will circulate figures for 1968–69, 1969–70 and 1970–71 in the Official Report. Preliminary analysis suggests that in 1974–75 more than 1,000 United Kingdom and Irish-born doctors left this country, and the number returning may have been less than 550.

Mr. MacGregor: Is the Minister aware that all the signs are that the figures will soon be up again on this near-record figure for 1974–75 because of the low state of morale in the profession, due to its poor terms and conditions and because of poor salary prospects compared with prospects overseas? Is he also aware that many consultants, including some in the hospital serving the Minister's own constituents, are now taking up locum posts in European hospitals during their vacations, no doubt testing the water prior to freedom of movement of doctors at the end of the year? What is he going to do about that?

Mr. Ennals: I would say to the hon. Gentleman that the present outflow, which does concern me, started in 1972–73. There is nothing particular about the last two years. It is true that United Kingdom doctors are in considerable demand overseas and their merit here holds them in good respect. I would also say that the figures even now are below the figures of roughly a decade ago. We have to balance that with the fact that with the increasing number of United Kingdom-trained doctors coming back there is a larger number of doctors in the health service now than ever before.

Mr. Pavitt: Will my right hon. Friend give more publicity to the figure of 550 returns? Has he seen the article in the

General Practitioner, which says that from Canada and America the number of returns are quite high? It is about time we had as much publicity in respect of those who come back as there is in respect of those who go.

Mr. Ennals: This is important. Very often figures have been used to suggest that doctors who leave do not return. On average, a high proportion—well over half—do return to this country, having gained additional experience abroad. One has to accept that doctors are very mobile. It is good that they should travel and return to Britain.

Dr. Vaughan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, having first denied for a long time that there was a serious emigration problem and having now admitted that it is increasing, what the House would like to know is what action he will take?

Mr. Ennals: The new contracts that junior hospital doctors have signed have substantially improved their situation. There were 68 senior registrars and 48 registrars among all those who left in 1975, so it is a small proportion.

Mr. Hardy: Is not my right hon. Friend correct in setting his answer against a background of an increasing number of doctors? Will he give some details of that increase over the last 10 years? Is it not also the case that a substantial proportion of the doctors who have emigrated, perhaps only temporarily, were in no way connected with private medicine?

Mr. Ennals: My hon. Friend's latter point is absolutely right—the majority were not particularly involved in private medicine. It is important that we should give more recognition to the fact that people are returning to this country. Doctors want to come back to Britain. That is an important factor.

Miss Fookes: Could I tell the Minister—

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is going to ask the right hon. Gentleman a question.

Miss Fookes: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is strong dissatisfaction among many doctors about their conditions of service, that this is leading them to consider emigration, and that it is something about which he should be not simply concerned but alarmed?

Mr. Ennals: One has to recognise that doctors are not so much disturbed at con-

Net Migration of United Kingdom and Irish Republic-born Doctors




1968–69
1969–70
1970–71



Country
Inflow
Outflow
Inflow
Outflow
Inflow
Outflow


1.
Irish Republic
77
63
137
70
96
51


2.
Continental EEC (including Denmark)
7
11
8
15
9
16


3.
Developing Commonwealth
153
167
193
155
140
145


4.
USA and Canada
104
269
113
333
111
256


5.
Other Developing countries
24
33
36
32
30
44

Note: Figures relate to fully or provisionally registered civilian doctors born in the United Kingdom or Irish Republic leaving or entering Great Britain during the year ending 30th September.

The figures for the Continental EEC include Denmark, which was not a member of the EEC in the stated years. Those for developing Commonwealth are for all Commonwealth countries excluding Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

Child Benefit Scheme

Mr. Madden: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what representations have been made to his Department over the postponement of the introduction of the child benefit scheme; and what replies he has sent.

Mr. Arnold: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many representations he has received following his announcement not to proceed with the child benefit scheme.

Mr. Ennals: Up to yesterday, 64 letters had been received in my Department following my statement about child benefit on 25th May, the great majority expressing concern over the Government's decision. In reply I have explained that we are in fact proceeding with the scheme but in a modified form, because of the serious implications of the full scheme for pay policy.

Mr. Madden: Does my right hon. Friend agree that although those who have written to him are naturally angry about the Government's current policies, those same people also see the antics and the attitudes displayed by the official Opposition, particularly last night, as having more to do with peripheral parliamentary battles than with an attack on family poverty? When does he expect

ditions in the National Health Service; many of them are concerned with the organisation within their own profession. Over the last few months a great deal of work has been done on the conditions of service of junior hospital doctors. The interests of doctors in general are being considered carefully as we work out current pay policy.

Following is the information:—

the tripartite committee that has been set up to consider these matters to report? Will he give an assurance that the Government will place no obstacles in the way of that committee's report being published—notwithstanding its likely leaking? Lastly, will he give an assurance that his Department will issue a prompt statement on the committee's recommendations, to enable the House to have a full discussion of those recommendations?

Mr. Speaker: Before the Minister replies, may I say that it will be very unfair to those hon. Members with Questions on the Order Paper if everyone asks a long supplementary question?

Mr. Ennals: Of course I agree with my hon. Friend about the behaviour of the Opposition yesterday. I said in the debate that they were simply playing party politics with the problems of poor families. But I do not want to spend any more time on that; we had that yesterday.
As for the committee, not only will the Government give serious consideration to the work which comes from it; we shall of course be involved in its work. It has not yet started. I am certain that it will start soon, and no doubt its recommendations will be made to the Government. It is for the Government to


decide what proposals to bring before Parliament, but I have little doubt that, by one means or another, the recommendations of the committee will become known.

Mr. Arnold: Does the setting up of the proposed working party mean that the Government have received representations from the TUC protesting at the way in which they were tricked into believing that the blocking of the child benefit scheme was the view of a unanimous Cabinet?

Mr. Ennals: No, there have been no representations from the TUC on those lines at all. As I said yesterday, the views of the Government and the TUC are in harmony. It was the Government and the TUC and the Parliamentary Labour Party who jointly decided—this followed discussions that I had myself had with officials of the TUC—that we should keep in close touch so as to work out together how we can eventually evolve and introduce into the House the full child benefit scheme. I warmly welcome the fact that this working party has been established.

Mr. Hooley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, not withstanding the jolly little procedural tango that we had last night, there is a powerful school of thought on the Government side of the House which is determined to see that this child benefit scheme is brought in in 1977? Perhaps he and his Cabinet colleagues will bear that in mind.

Mr. Ennals: I have noted what my hon. Friend said.

Mr. Peter Walker: Since hon. Members on both sides of the House are very much in favour of the introduction of the child benefit scheme as early as possible, will the right hon. Gentleman carefully consider, irrespective of party differences, the arguments produced yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wan-stead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) to show that there may be a way of spending the £95 million that the Government have made available so as to give much more help to the most poverty stricken families than the scheme which the Government at present envisage?

Mr. Ennals: I am afraid that whatever scheme we brought in, whether for £95

million or for marginally less or more, the take-home pay problem would be precisely the same. Although it has always been the case that there was going to be a transfer from the husband's purse to the wife's handbag— [Interruption.] I am trying to deal seriously with the question —given that we have a new pay policy, and in the second stage of the battle against inflation—when, uniquely, the pay policy is based on a modest increase in pay and significant tax concessions—this would have been the most difficult year of all in which to have introduced the full transfer. But we have made a start.

Medicines (Costs)

Mr. Jessel: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the annual cost of medicines provided on prescription.

The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Dr. David Owen): The cost of medicines only is not available but the total cost in 1975 of drugs, dressings and appliances dispensed under the pharmaceutical services in England was £379 million.

Mr. Jessel: As that figure of £379 million means that the cost to taxpayers is rising rapidly, will the Minister say what proportion of medicines and appliances is actually consumed or used and what proportion, especially of medicines, is wasted? Would not less medicine be wasted if people were taxed less and had to pay more for their medicines?

Dr. Owen: It is very hard to determine—I have no accurate figure—the amount of medicine wasted, but whenever unused medicines are returned, one finds that a considerable amount is turned out of people's medicine cupboards. What is needed is better prescribing overall and a recognition by patients that not every ailment is cured with pills.

Mr. Ward: When does my right hon. Friend propose to review the Regulations governing the dispensing of medicines, bearing in mind the numerous anomalies in the Regulations that he inherited and particularly the effect on migraine sufferers of the dual charge for drugs like Migraleve, in which two drugs are combined in one treatment?

Dr. Owen: It has always been the policy of the various specialist groups advising the Government not to encourage the prescribing of two separate ingredients simultaneously, on overall medical grounds, but the Regulations are open to certain problems, not least those that arise in the case of chronic sufferers having to pay prescription charges.

Dr. Vaughan: In view of his recent statement, will the Minister reassure the medical profession that he has no intention of introducing legislation that would restrict their right to prescribe that which they think best for their patients?

Dr. Owen: The medical profession must recognise that it has to make economic decisions. At present the prescription bill has no cash limit and is open-ended, but if the medical profession were not able to show some form of economic restraint in its budget any Government would be forced to look at other measures. At the moment we prefer to rely on education and we hope to keep the drugs bill within reasonable bounds by that method.

Dr. M. S. Miller: Does my right hon. Friend agree that £7 a year per head of population is a relatively modest sum of money for all the benefits that come from the drugs section of the National Health service?

Dr. Owen: One can compare our costs with those of other countries, and we come out favourably. We must recognise that the continued existence of the voluntary price restraint has meant that the excess profits in the industry that appeared in the late 1950s and early 1960s, have been largely eradicated. We have a thriving and effective drugs industry, with a good export record.

Mrs. Chalker: Will the Minister look into over-prescribing by quantity of medicines within the health service, particularly in hospitals? Does he agree that there is now evidence that over-prescribing is rife in hospitals?

Dr. Owen: I shall look at any evidence that the hon. Lady may have. On this subject one comes up against the problem of clinical freedom. In this case also one should try education. Hospital doctors are in much the same situation

as independent contractors in that respect. It is interesting that many hospitals require the signature of a consultant on prescriptions for the more expensive drugs, and junior doctors are allowed to prescribe only the less expensive drugs. They have not felt that to be an infringement of their clinical freedom. But it is a matter that we can examine.

Benefits (Children)

Mr. Marten: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services when he next proposes to meet representatives of the TUC in connection with social benefits payable in respect of children.

Mr. Ennals: Provision of social benefits for children is one of the items included within the continuing discussions between the Government and the TUC on the social contract and on pay policy.

Mr. Marten: After yesterday's retreat by the Government over social benefits for children, will the Secretary of State make it clear to the TUC that support for families with children was better under the Conservatives?

Mr. Ennals: In the House last night I dealt not so much with the failure of the Government, but with the failure of the Opposition to put forward any constructive policy or to table a motion yesterday. I also said in the debate that we deeply regretted the fact that the promises on family allowances made by the previous Government in 1970 were absolutely ignored during their four years in office.

Mrs. Hayman: When discussing the child benefit scheme with the TUC in the future, will the Government, instead of looking at only the negative aspect of transfer, discuss the positive value of the scheme? Will they explain the value of the scheme to members of the TUC and other people whom the Government appear to think will be put off by the transfer?

Mr. Ennals: I agree with my hon. Friend's every word. One of the principal purposes of the working party consisting of the Government, the Labour Party and the TUC, will be to ensure that all who believe in child benefits and the social benefit that follows from it will become involved in seeking to see that


people throughout the country understand the implications of it. That is a vital educational task, which must be fulfilled.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Will the Secretary of State even now, after he has published all the six Regulations for his own miserable scheme, look at the figures contained in the precise proposals that I put to him last night to see whether he can achieve the advantages for the really poor to which his hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) just referred?

Mr. Ennals: As I said yesterday, apart from the errors of calculation made by the right hon. Gentleman in the ideas that he floated, he did not deal with the problem of take-home pay. When he refers to my "miserable scheme" he should know that, unlike his party when in government, this Government are fulfilling their commitment to bring benefits to the first child.

Derbyshire Hospitals (Secure Units)

Mr. Whitehead: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he is satisfied with the progress of the South Derbyshire Area Health Authority in following up his Department's and the regional health authority's guidelines on the provision of interim regional secure units attached to Derbyshire hospitals.

Dr. Owen: No, Sir. I understand that at its meeting on 10th May the Derbyshire AHA noted the Trent RHA's formal direction to area health authorities to arrange such provision and that senior officers of the area health authority are urgently holding discussions with consultant medical staff about the extent of the need for such provision within the area, and how best to meet it.

Mr. Whitehead: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, but is he aware that the constituent whose case I have had to raise in the House is now in Rampton Hospital and could be there indefinitely because of the lack of facilities for treating cases of personality disorder? Is he aware that the problem extends wider than Derbyshire?

Dr. Owen: It is a difficult problem. It involves difficulties of staff attitudes and professional views. Special hospitals are overcrowded and cannot accept all such cases. The only way in which the problem

can be solved is by each region taking responsibility for its own area.

Sir George Young: Will the Minister confirm, despite the recommendations of the Butler Committee, that many regional health authorities have no plans for special units?

Dr. Owen: Progress in that direction is disappointingly slow and patchy. Some regions are making progress. The Government are doing everything they can. They are meeting the revenue and capital costs of secure units and have done all that they can to deal with staff problems and other difficulties. I am hopeful that we are now making more rapid progress.

Hospital Patients (Length of Stay)

Mr. Hal Miller: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he is taking to reduce the disparity in the average length of stay of hospital patients between different regions.

Dr. Owen: The recent consultative document on priorities for health and social services draws attention to the wide variation in average length of stay and the possible financial saving if it were reduced.
Since all area health authorities will be operating under cash limits it will become increasingly clear that savings within an area health authority budget will be one of the main ways of financing improvements in the service and this should give an incentive to clinicians to review their current clinical practice.

Mr. Miller: Has my right hon. Friend or his Department examined the effects on waiting lists of that disparity, and are they considering that side of the question?

Dr. Owen: The two things are to some extent linked. If one frees more beds, the turnover probably increases but that may lead to bottlenecks in operating theatres or diagnostic facilities. The special grants to the regional health authorities were designed to try to eliminate the problems. Much has and can be done in more areas for out-patient surgery, which has a dramatic impact on waiting lists.

Mr. D. E. Thomas: Is there adequate machinery for the various health authorities in England and Wales to review both the bed occupancy ratio and the waiting lists?

Dr. Owen: I can speak only for the English machinery. The situation in Wales is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales. I am not satisfied. The whole area needs to be examined more stringently, but I would prefer that to be done by the medical profession looking at the data, seeing the economic consequences of the actions of various individuals, and mutually persuading each other to try to reduce length of stay.

Mr. Carter-Jones: Will the Minister look carefully at the question of length of stay, as it is related to the community care services in any area where the patient is discharged? Will he take steps to ensure that no patient is discharged to live in conditions that are unfit for a sick person?

Dr. Owen: That is another problem. If one increases the turnover, pressure is put on all the community health services. That is one of the reasons why we say that a higher percentage of the overall budget must go to community care and primary health care facilities. If length of stay is reduced, one must have more support facilities.

Mr. Boscawen: Does the Minister of State agree that some areas have scandalously long waiting lists for non-acute cases? Will he show a much greater sense of urgency about those areas in clearing the lists?

Dr. Owen: I share the hon. Gentleman's concern. It is very difficult to try to persuade people, which is the method we have used. I have no doubt that if, throughout the country, some of the existing best practices were universalised, we would go a long way towards solving the problem of waiting lists. But there are some areas in which lack of a hospital or lack of facilities is causing problems. We are doing what we can to alleviate them.

Hospital Patients (Transfers)

Mr. Moonman: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he proposes to take to provide for patients transferred from outdated fire-risk premises in Essex and other parts of the country following the decision of his Department that a completed £1·5 million unit at Enfield for mentally handicapped

patients intended to correct some of the South Ockenden problems is to remain empty.

Dr. Owen: My Department has made no such decision. Services to the mentally handicapped are amongst the Government's highest priorities. It is for the health authorities to organise those services in the knowledge of their priority and within the constraints of the resources available to them.

Mr. Moonman: This is a very distressing affair. Will my right hon. Friend give some indication of the lessons that are to be learned In this particular case, in view of the great pressures on space for the mentally handicapped? Can he give some intelligent reassurance about the matter?

Dr. Owen: As I understand it, the question is still being reviewed. One of the anxieties that arise concerns the feeling of the regional and area health authorities that the revenue consequences of capital schemes will not be met in future years. This is not a new condition: this is always the problem when practically every new capital facility in the health service carries with it higher revenue consequences. We are not making revenue savings as a result of the capital injection, which is causing problems. However, the subject is being reviewed sympathetically in view of the high priority being given to the mentally handicapped.

Hearing Research (National Institute)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services when the Director-General of the proposed British National Institute for Hearing Research will commence his duties; what is the estimate of expenditure to be allocated to this institute in each of the next four years; what proportion of such expenditure will be borne directly by his Department and by the research councils; and if he will make a statement.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Alfred Morris): I am advised by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science that Professor Mark Haggard will take up his duties as Director of the Institute of Hearing Research on 1st January 1977.
I understand that costs cannot realistically be quantified until the director has formulated detailed proposals for consideration, but that the Medical Research Council envisages capital expenditure of up to £500,000 over the next three years, and running costs that may rise to £250,000 a year by 1980–81. My Department will make available funds for developing the service facilities that the National Health Service will provide in support of the institute's research. It is not yet possible to say how total expenditure will be shared between my Department and the council.

Mr. Pavitt: Does my hon. Friend recall that it has taken six years between the passing of his Act and the appointment of the Director for this development to take place? I congratulate my hon. Friend on the fact that, on his initiative and that of his right hon. Friend, at last this has now started to move. Will he ensure that there are regular progress reports, to make sure that this project continues to make rapid progress? Will he also ensure that there will be a name with "British National" attached to it and not just "The Institute"?

Mr. Morris: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I shall keep his point in mind. It will be my desire to report progress to the House. Our aim will be to get the institute off to the quickest possible start after the Director has taken up his appointment.

Mr. George Rodgers: How many of the new cosmetic hearing aids have been issued through the service?

Mr. Morris: At the latest available date, 113,000 of the new behind-the-ear hearing aids had been issued. Our programme is for the issue of 1 million of these new cosmetic hearing aids. We are proceeding at the fastest possible rate.

Mr. Marten: May we have six-monthly or annual reports from this institute—certainly regular reports?

Mr. Morris: It would be difficult for me to give a pledge about six-monthly or annual reports. I shall seek to let the House have information about progress at convenient dates, bearing in mind what the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend have said.

Retirement Age

Mr. McCrindle: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many representations he has received on retirement age for men since 1st January.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Eric Deakins): No figures are maintained of the total number of letters that my Department gets on a particular issue, but so far this year there have been about 250 letters about men's pension age. which have received or will receive a ministerial reply.

Mr. McCrindle: Has the Minister given any further consideration to the scheme whereby the retirement age of men would be advanced in six-monthly stages and the retirement age of women retarded in six-monthly stages, over five years until all ultimately retire at the age of 62½? Does the Minister agree that such a scheme would at least for the first two years, be almost self-financing? On a subject about which he will hear a great deal more over the coming years, is not this the most reasonable and defensible approach?

Mr. Deakins: I am afraid that I must disappoint the hon. Gentleman, because for any age below about 64¼ years the cost of lowering men's pension age would exceed the savings from raising the age for women.

Mr. George Cunningham: In the longer term, is not the right objective to move towards a flexible retirement age for both men and women, at any age of their choice between 60 and 70 years, but of course with their getting a lower pension at 60 than they would at 70?

Mr. Deakins: If, as my hon. Friend has suggested, having a flexible retirement age means the payment of a lower pension to someone retiring before normal pension age, the Government are opposed to that idea. Our aim is to provide higher and not lower pensions.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: What work, if any, is being done in the Department on the feasibility of a flexible retirement age? Will the Minister assure us that his last reply does not dismiss the idea of a flexible age as a more promising reform


than simply reducing the retirement age for men to a lower inflexible level?

Mr. Deakins: Our policy in the longer term would certainly be to see the retirement age for men lowered rather than to have a flexible retirement age, but we rule out a lowering of men's retirement age in present circumstances, because of the tremendous cost involved.

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: Is not the real need to provide a target date for the retirement of men at 60? If this were spread out over a number of years, it would destroy the cost argument. Will my hon. Friend accept from me that almost every hon. Member finds it deplorable that the Government will not even give a target date for this basic measure of sex equality?

Mr. Deakins: Sex equality could also be achieved by raising women's retirement age. However, as regards phasing in a lower retirement age for men, the total cost at the end of the period would still be substantial. It would mean a significant increase in the number of pensioners, which would make it much more difficult for us in the interim to raise the real living standards of the existing pensioner population.

Gonorrhoea

Mr. Ronald Atkins: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what are the latest figures to show the incidence of gonorrhoea in the United Kingdom; and how they compare with those of 10 years ago.

Dr. Owen: My Department collects figures of the numbers of new cases of gonorrhoea treated at clinics in England, and in 1974 this was 58,071. This compares with 36,775 in 1964.

Mr. Atkins: Is not the incidence of this disease serious? Is the Minister satisfied that enough publicity is given to it and, indeed that enough education on this subject is given in schools? Will he make representations about this to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science?

Dr. Owen: I am concerned about the growth which represents a rise of 60 per cent. over a 10-year period. However, the bulk of this rise occurred in the period up to 1969. In the last four years the

increase has been less than 4 per cent. The Health Education Council spent £25,845 in 1974 on publicity and training schemes concerning the control of sexually-transmitted diseases. I shall consider whether it would be helpful to discuss the situation with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science.

Mr. Stokes: Will the Minister take a careful look at the activities of the so-called Family Planning Association which many people believe is responsible for the increase in both promiscuity and venereal disease?

Dr. Owen: I believe—I think that this is a view thtat is shared on both sides of the House—that the Family Planning Association has a remarkable record of championing social progress. On a largely all-party basis, it has allowed the introduction of a comprehensive family planning service within the National Health Service. It has collaborated in the transfer of many of its responsibilities to the National Health Service and still has an important role in both sex education and family planning education. I strongly support its independence and its integrity.

Area Health Authorities (Expenditure)

Mr. Giles Shaw: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will give detailed advice to area health authorities on how they may cut back their revenue expenditure.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what plans he has to advise area health authorities on the cost-effective use of limited resources.

Mr. Ennals: Over the years my Department has provided health authorities with a wide range of detailed guidance on the most effective use of the resources available to them. This guidance is continually being revised and added to and covers management techniques such as cost control and purchasing procedures, organisation and management studies, and advice on the organisation and development of patient care services, including ways in which the health care professions should be involved in the planning and management of these services. The


recently published consultative document on priorities for health and personal social services suggests a number of areas for particular scrutiny by health authorities.

Mr. Shaw: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his answer. Does he agree that in present circumstances, guidance on what would happen if regional authorities were to overspend their budgets is important? Do the Government expect regional health authorities which overspend to have to cut down on their medical and nursing staff, and so on?

Mr. Ennals: It is certainly necessary for both regional health authorities and area health authorities to live within their budgets, just as it is important that the National Health Service should live within its budget. We are faced with a situation, partly due to reorganisation carried out by the previous Government, in which the administration has become too heavy. Health authorities have already agreed to reduce the cost of managerial staffs, or to try to hold the cost at current figures. I shall be sending out a letter this week to area health authorities giving further advice on how to slim their administration.

Mr. Cryer: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be undesirable for any area health authority to cut down on staff, particularly at this time of very high unemployment? Does he further agree that the crocodile tears from the opposition about public expenditure always disappear when they talk about defence? Is it not the job of the Labour Government to make sure that we get our priorities right, and transfer some of the massive amount of defence expenditure to the monument to Socialism which the National Health Service represents?

Mr. Ennals: I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that, in a general period of planning standstill, we have got our priorities right in regard to public expenditure. We have planned for the National Health Service to continue its growth. This is admittedly low—at 1·8 per cent. annually, and 2 per cent. in regard to personal social services. We are leaving room for an element of growth, and I think we must do so because of the priority we give to the National Health Service.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is not one of the major anxieties of area health authorities, on the revenue account, how to meet the additional bill for junior hospital doctors? Will the Secretary of State undertake to make a statement to the House quite shortly about the junior hospital doctors' pay negotiations, including an explanation of the way in which the area health authorities are to find the money necessary to meet the undertakings given by his Department?

Mr. Ennals: It is, of course, for area health authorities to determine how much of doctors' time they contract to pay. The responsibility lies with area health authorities. I shall certainly deal with the matter in answer to a Question or, if I feel it necessary, be prepared to inform the House of the outcome of the current negotiations to complete the new contract for junior hospital doctors.

Mental Patients (Voting Rights)

Mr. John Evans: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services when he expects to receive the report of the interdepartmental working party on enfranchising individuals whose home address is a State-maintained mental hospital.

Mr. Ennals: Following the Government's acceptance in principle of the Speaker's Conference recommendation that for electoral registration purposes. patients in mental hospitals should be placed on the same footing as those in general hospitals, the working party has been asked to seek the views of political parties and other interested bodies on the practical issues the working party has identified in implementing this. I hope that this will not take too long and that the working party will be able to complete its report later in the year.

Mr. Evans: I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Will he confirm that there are about 50,000 people in this country in this category? Will he take every step to ensure that these unfortunate people, who until now have been, in my view, wrongly disfranchised, are included on this year's register, so that they will be able to vote in next year's elections?

Mr. Ennals: I cannot confirm the exact number, but it is something of the order referred to by my hon. Friend. I am


afraid that I cannot give the guarantee for which he asked, because there are a number of problems. We must work these out in detail and then bring the matter before the House, so that the House may understand it. It is very unlikely that we shall be able to complete it so that it can be applicable to the next register.

Mr. Dalyell: Does my right hon. Friend agree that any hon. Member who visits mental hospitals must be struck by the fact that patients feel remarkably strongly about political rights? Could the working party take into account the arbitrariness of decisions taken at the present time?

Mr. Ennals: I agree with my hon. Friend. I know that many of those in psychiatric hospitals, who have no other home but the psychiatric hospital, feel very strongly indeed about this matter. We know of a recent court case which related to those who were living in the grounds of a psychiatric hospital but nevertheless were denied their political freedom. I feel as strongly about it as they do. As soon as the House is able to give to these people their proper electoral rights, it should do so.

CBI AND TUC

Mr. MacGregor: asked the Prime Minister when he next intends to meet the CBI and the TUC.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave to the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker) on 27th May.

Mr. Macgregor: Does the Prime Minister agree that one of the best ways to bolster international confidence in the pound, which is of concern to both the TUC and the CBI, would be for the Government to announce their revised expenditure programmes for next year as soon as possible? Would this not also help to remove the damaging uncertainty that now exists because of all the rumours surrounding these programmes? Will the Prime Minister assure us that an announcement will be made before the House rises?

The Prime Minister: I agree that rumours are damaging in this matter, especially if they are without foundation.

Undoubtedly, it is part of the Government's task to strengthen sterling, for a number of reasons that are connected with our domestic situation.
As to public expenditure, I have nothing further to say than I have said so far on this matter. The review is proceeding in an orderly manner and the House will be informed of the Government's deliberations in due course.

Mr. Watkinson: When my right hon. Friend next meets the CBI and the TUC, will he discuss the problem of investment? Has he noticed reports in City papers and financial journals to the effect that there is a growing tendency for companies to send money abroad rather than retain it in this country? Does he agree that this haemorrhage cannot continue if we are to bring about the investment boom that we so desperately require?

The Prime Minister: There is a falling away of investment again this year. According to the estimates, it is likely to be lower than last year. But the forecasts show that the major companies involved expect to begin a new programme of investment which will substantially increase in 1977. Indeed, the last forecasts, for what they are worth—I do not wish to imply anything more than that, because they are all estimates—indicate that companies expect to have an increase of 15 per cent. in their investment in new plant and machinery next year.
With regard to the resources available to companies for this purpose, clearly they will take their own decisions on whether they think it is better to invest here than abroad. But I have no doubt that if we are to overcome our present economic difficulties the investment should take place here.

Mrs. Thatcher: Before the Prime Minister sees the TUC again, and as the TUC represents about 3 million women members, will he tell the House whether it was the TUC that told the Government to delay the child benefit scheme or the Government who asked the TUC to agree to postponing it for three years?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Lady might have taken part in the debate yesterday if she felt so strongly about it. She could have put her questions then. The matter was fully discussed


in the House yesterday, and the Conservative Opposition did not have the guts to vote.

Mrs. Thatcher: The question was not resolved yesterday. That is why I asked it specifically. May I say to the Prime Minister that avuncular flannel will not do?

The Prime Minister: I have often thought of the right hon. Lady in many ways, but never as my niece. As to our relations with the TUC, I do not propose to disclose these in this House. The relations between us depend partly upon confidentiality being preserved, and the fact that it has been broken does not help relations between us.

MINISTERIAL BROADCASTS

Mr. Rost: asked the Prime Minister when he expects to make his next ministerial broadcast.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) on 27th April.

Mr. Rost: Now that the Prime Minister has been firmly told by the creditors' meeting in Puerto Rico that the price of Socialism has become unacceptable, will he, in a personal broadcast to the nation, spell out what public expenditure cuts are needed now, in addition to the scrapping of the nationalisation programme—or will he wait for the details to be delivered in a shopping basket?

The Prime Minister: The conversations at Puerto Rico did not take anything like the form that the hon. Gentleman alleges. As he was not there, I do not know how he knows. He certainly should not rely upon newspaper reports of what took place at Puerto Rico. I think that there is general anxiety about next year's level of public expenditure—1977–1978—and it is to that that we are directing our attention now.

Mr. Heffer: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the statement which appeared in some evening newspapers yesterday, and which was alleged to come from Puerto Rico, that there were to be cuts of £1,000 million in public expenditure is totally untrue? Will he tell the

House that no such measures are intended by the Government?

The Prime Minister: For obvious reasons, I did not see last night's newspapers. If the reference is to this year, it is totally untrue. I have no ministerial responsibility for what appears in newspapers, whether or not it purports to come from Puerto Rico. I am giving no guarantees on next year's level of public expenditure. I have said that time after time, and I repeat it.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: In his next broadcast will the Prime Minister tell us whether he will be daunted in the keeping of his election manifesto promise for a Scottish Assembly by the unacceptable face of the English backlash and the alliance of certain rather unintelligent Scottish Members of Parliament?

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Lady to the broadcast which I made in Scotland a few weeks ago when I made the Government's position on this matter quite clear.

Mr. Mike Thomas: Whether or not the American President and his colleagues made the impertinent comments reported in the Press to my right hon. Friend, did he inform them that the level of unemployment that appears acceptable in the United States of America is not acceptable here?

The Prime Minister: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement on Puerto Rico at the end of Questions, and I may perhaps reserve my comments until then.

STATE VISITS

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Prime Minister what factors he takes into account when advising Her Majesty on State visits.

The Prime Minister: All relevant factors are taken into account, including an appreciation of the objectives of British foreign policy and of the manner in which a State visit can promote these objectives.

Mr. Roberts: As we are so often told that the Queen is one of Britain's major national assets, does my right hon. Friend


accept that in a period of economic stringency it is important to make full use of this asset to support the sale of British goods and services overseas and maintain Britain's national standing overseas?

The Prime Minister: I think that Her Majesty has shown this on one or two occasions, for example, when she visited one foreign country and British business men, with her permission, were able to give a reception in the yacht "Britannia". In other ways Her Majesty has always shown her full support for our export efforts.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION (PRESIDENT)

Mr. Whitehead: asked the Prime Minister what plans he has to meet the President of the European Commission.

The Prime Minister: I expect to meet President Ortoli at the meeting of the European Council on 12th and 13th July.

Mr. Whitehead: When my right hon. Friend meets President Ortoli will he discuss with him direct elections to the European Parliament? If he does, will he take the opportunity of assuring the President that in Britain the election will be conducted according to traditional methods and not in accordance with the new fancy franchise peddled by some well-meaning people, which would seriously interfere with relations between the individual Member and the individual constituent?

The Prime Minister: I fully support the view that the list system, however applicable it may be in other countries, would be an unwelcome innovation here. That has been part of the attitude that we have had to take in our discussions on direct elections, when other countries have been willing to accept a relatively small number of Members because they would all be voted for on a list. I have had to explain on many occasions that if the number is too small the personal relationship between the Member and his constituency will be broken.

Mr. Alexander Fletcher: Before the Prime Minister next meets the President of the Commission, will he take the opportunity to give some confidence to the inshore fishing industry that his Gov-

ernment intend to protect its interests within the Common Market? Does the Prime Minister realise that it is time for his Government to take a definite initiative on this important matter?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. We regard the common fisheries policy—which was negotiated just before we entered the Common Market—as naturally requiring amendment in the light of the changed international situation. The 200-mile limit has altered the whole scene. We made that clear during President Giscard d'Estaing's recent visit. I assured him at the time that we would certainly have regard to the traditional fishing rights of, for example, French fishermen, but we would expect, in the changed circumstances, a revision of the policy. When we meet at the European Council we shall again make this clear.

Mr. Dalyell: As the European Parliament in the last three months has had meetings in six different cities, will the Prime Minister say a word about costs in terms of officials' and Members' time, and the sheer money cost of the nomadic nature of the European Parliament?

The Prime Minister: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend but, alas, I do not think that anything I might say in anyone's ear would be likely to have much effect. [Interruption.] I do not know what hon. Gentlemen think they get out of that. I believe that it is a cause of great inconvenience to the Members attending the Assembly, but the countries concerned seem to be unable to agree on any one fixed place.

Mr. Dykes: In discussing the circumstances and the economies of individual member States with the President of the Commission, will the Prime Minister ask his opinion of the daunting fact that the total of Britain's international indebtedness exceeds the level of Germany's net reserves?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir, I shall not ask him that. Our indebtedness is well covered by our assets.

Mr. Spearing: Reverting to the question of direct elections, which will no doubt be discussed under the President's chairmanship, will the Prime Minister confirm that the next stage will be a convention, and that that convention will be


debatable in the House prior to any Bill—which is the emphasis placed on the matter by the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs?

The Prime Minister: I venture in those waters with some trepidation, but I believe that my hon. Friend has stated the matter correctly. If he wishes to know the exact position, perhaps he will table a Question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR ADMINISTRATION

Mr. George Rodgers: asked the Prime Minister if he will seek to ensure that, in future, appointments to the office of Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration are not restricted to former permanent secretaries and other senior civil servants.

The Prime Minister: There never has been a requirement for this post to be held by a former civil servant. In future appointments, as previously, consideration will be given to all suitable candidates.

Mr. Rodgers: Is my right hon. Friend aware that when I recently pursued a complaint with the Parliamentary Commissioner because I considered that a Government circular was misleading, the Parliamentary Commissioner was unable to handle the case because he had signed the circular in question, and he passed it on to a deputy? Does not my right hon. Friend agree that that is an incestuous situation? Is there any reason why a trade unionist should not be appointed to that office?

The Prime Minister: I see no reason why a trade unionist or even an employer should not be appointed to that post in due course. My hon. Friend has raised a difficulty, but one which I imagine does not often occur. The appointment of a civil servant at least has the advantage that whoever is appointed knows his way round Whitehall, and that is important in these matters.

Mr. Evelyn King: Does the Prime Minister accept that Parliamentary Com-

missioners, locally as well as nationally, have done an extraordinarily good job, and that many hon. Members and their constituents have reason to be grateful to them? Will he consider extending their powers?

The Prime Minister: From my own personal experience, I would agree with the hon. Member. I have had constituency cases that have been investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner. He has done so with great thoroughness, though not always to the satisfaction of myself or my constituents—but that is only to be expected. I do not know about the case for giving further powers to the Parliamentary Commissioner. If the hon. Member has anything particular in mind perhaps he will let me know.

Mr. Mellish: No doubt my right hon. Friend will be looking for people with a great deal of experience in Whitehall. Will he bear in mind the fact that I am only half-employed these days, and I am very willing to consider the job? In fact, I reckon I am just the boy to knock some of them about.

The Prime Minister: I can think of no one better. In this case, I assure my right hon. Friend that canvassing will not exclude him from consideration for the post.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Does the Prime Minister realise that in most countries this position is held by a former politician? Will he undertake to read the report of the Select Committee on this subject, because it has a very pungent paragraph dealing with this point? The report will be published shortly.

The Prime Minister: I shall undertake to do this, as I know the hon. and learned Gentleman's interest in these matters. Although Parliamentary Commissioners have done a good job in the past, I have no particular view about the post continuing to be held by a civil servant. This was settled when the Parliamentary Commissioner was appointed last January. I do not know about the point that the hon. and learned Gentleman made about politicians, but I think it is true that there is certainly a number of countries in which former civil servants are given this post.

HEADS OF GOVERNMENT (PUERTO RICO MEETING)

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the two-day meeting of the Heads of Government of seven of the world's largest industrial democracies at Puerto Rico. The meeting was held at the invitation and under the chairmanship of the President of the United States, and I was accompanied by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. The text of the joint declaration issued at the end has been placed in the Library of the House.
This meeting was similar in nature to that held at Rambouillet last November and its purpose was to take stock of developments on the world economic scene since then. As at Rambouillet, our intention was not to reach decisions or to establish policies. We do that at the national level, or, as appropriate, in the European Community and in other organisations of which we are members. Our aim was rather to establish trends, to clarify objectives and to identify future problems.
Our discussion ranged over the most important aspects of the international economic, monetary and trading scene. We also considered East-West relations in this context, looking forward to a steady growth in East-West trade on a sound commercial basis in order to ensure that these economic ties enhance our general relationship with the Soviet Union and its partners.
And finally we had a long and constructive exchange about the role that the industrialised democracies must play in helping the developing countries to achieve their rightful hopes and aspirations.
This was a substantial agenda for a two-day meeting. The fact that we managed to cover it illustrates one of the features of this kind of meeting. The numbers attending are small and compact. Discussions are business-like and to the point. We do not make speeches at each other. We talk frankly but also as briefly as we can, and a lot of ground is covered.
This was, on the whole, a confident meeting. There has been a marked change since Rambouillet, and economic recovery is well under way in the world. Some of the other major industrial powers are emerging faster from recession than we, and their growing strength will give further impetus to us. But there was also understanding of what seemed to me to be three significant elements in the industrialised world's present move out of recession. First, growth rates are still modest; secondly, at this stage of the economic cycle, inflation is worryingly high; and thirdly, unemployment is still much too high—higher than at the same stage in previous cycles.
Different countries are choosing different ways of dealing with these problems. Each of us has a different economic history and historical memories, which are reflected in our priorities. But we have common objectives—sustained expansion, lower unemployment and progress towards eliminating the problem of inflation.
There was a general recognition of the crucial role that the social partners have to play and appreciation of the success that we in Britain are having in overcoming inflation through this new social partnership. The best hope for a satisfactory outcome in the years ahead, for reducing inflation and unemployment, lies in a policy of maximum co-operation between Government, trade unions and employers, coupled with fiscal and monetary policies that will encourage the investment and increased production that are essential to ensure that we sustain the present recovery.
The spirit of Puerto Rico can be summed up in two words: co-operation and interdependence. Economically, we depend upon each other more than ever before. And there is growing recognition of the need to co-operate in our policies and actions so that our interdependence can be used to benefit both developed and developing countries. That was what we sought to express last year at Rambouillet. At Puerto Rico we were able both to note good progress made already and to look with confidence to further progress.

Mrs. Thatcher: I am grateful to the Prime Minister for extending the usual courtesies and making a statement after this meeting. It would seem that the


main value of the meeting is the contact between Heads of Government and chief Ministers. That aim is a good one in itself.
The joint declaration refers to the restoration of a better balance in public finance. Will the Prime Minister assure the House that if he proposes to take any action on that objective before the autumn he will tell the House in the July statement what changes in public expenditure he intends to make? Could we have this information before the House rises?
Secondly, it has been reported that Dr. Kissinger disclosed that there had been informal discussions on the state of affairs in Southern Africa and called attention to the central role which Britain could play in that area. Would the Prime Minister say whether he has any fresh proposals for taking up that central role, particularly in connection with Rhodesia, either on his own initiative or through the EEC?

The Prime Minister: I agree that the contacts between Heads of Government and Heads of State are, in themselves, invaluable. They give the opportunity of exchanging experiences about the way in which different policies are working out. Heads of Government and Heads of State do influence each other in the course of these very informal and candid exchanges, which are all the better because they are kept confidential.
On the question of a better balance in public finances, if there are to be any changes for 1977–78—and I have been questioned on this many times and have said that we are considering the matter, as we are—I would certainly think that industry, the House and the country should know the changes as soon as possible. If we can complete these discussions by the end of July, that would be helpful. The House would be informed, and I would want to discuss this with my own party, too. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon Gentlemen opposite may sneer, but the Labour Party cares very deeply about the levels of public expenditure and what the money is spent on. I have a feeling that the PES paper normally comes in the autumn. We do not want to rush this in the last few days before the House

rises or people will feel that they are being tricked by it. I want to have a full, proper and adequate discussion.
On the question of Southern Africa, Dr. Kissinger, the Foreign Secretary and I had discussions in London last Friday before I left, and not in Puerto Rico. I think that the American attitude was correctly expressed by him. I ask the right hon. Lady not to press me on this matter. I am not without hope that further progress can be made in this field, but I prefer not to particularise.

Mr. MacFarquhar: Is it true that in Puerto Rico my right hon. Friends were advocates of higher growth rates than were felt desirable by their foreign colleagues? If that was the case, are these foreign statesmen sticking to their decisions, and, if so, what implications does that have for our export-led growth?

The Prime Minister: A number of fiscal restraints have been proposed by one or two of the member States attending the conference. That in itself could slow down the rate of growth. If that happens it might have an impact upon our export drive, which is going ahead very well. I believe that exports increased in volume at an annual rate of 11 per cent. over the last three months. We need to sustain that rate if we are to overcome some of our problems.

Mr. Powell: Is it not evident from the Prime Minister's statement that even by the standards of international conferences this was a quite exceptionally pointless operation altogether?

The Prime Minister: I know that the right hon. Gentleman—[HON. MEMBERS: "He is disappointed."] Maybe he is disappointed, and his energies and capacities are such that they certainly ought to be used in productive ways. I can promise him, however, that if he had been present he would not have used those adjectives to describe the discussion. Although the conference meant a long and tiring journey both ways—[HON. MEMBERS: "In Concorde?"] It was a long journey and we set up a new world record in Concorde for the longest supersonic flight. If the right hon. Gentleman had been present he would not have used those adjectives. Those contacts are extremely valuable to all of us, and I certainly found them so.

Mr. Hooley: Will my right hon. Friend firmly repudiate the suggestion by the American Secretary to the Treasury that an unemployment rate of 5½ per cent. is in any way acceptable—certainly not, I would hope, in any part of the Western industrial world, and certainly not in this country?

The Prime Minister: I am not aware that the Secretary to the Treasury said that, and therefore I comment only on our own policy, which is that 5½ per cent. is certainly unacceptable and that we are working to get the level down and will continue to do so. I believe that the United States has had a higher rate of unemployment than that for some time, but, as I said in my statement, different countries have different historical experiences and memories. We are committed to returning to full employment at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. Grimond: We are all deeply sympathetic with the Prime Minister on the hardships he has undergone in travelling to the Summit meeting in Concorde. Will he confirm that when he talks about sustained expansion this will not be expansion for its own sake but will be expansion which is of real use to the poor people of this country and of the world at large and not merely an automatic increase in Government expenditure, useful or not?

The Prime Minister: The nature of the increased demand varies from country to country. We cannot be responsible for anybody's policies but our own. Our expansion at present it export-led. I trust that it will continue to be so. This country's greatest need is to find sufficient resources to put into new manufacturing investment, and when we have done that we shall get a dividend from it in due course.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: As some of the newspapers appear to give the impression that an attempt has been made to dictate to the Prime Minister what his policy on public expenditure shall be, will he make it clear to the House and to all the other countries concerned that this is a matter for him and his Government alone and that he will not be dictated to by foreign Governments?

The Prime Minister: I can assure my hon. Friend that I shall propose to the House measures, whether they be popu-

lar or unpopular, that I think are right and that can be sustained by this country in order to restore its economic and financial health. None of my colleagues who was present at Puerto Rico has any doubts about that, and there was no discussion on these matters between us.

Mr. John Davies: In his statement the Prime Minister did not refer to the other factor that greatly fuels international inflation, namely, volatility in commodity prices. Was that matter fully discussed and is some international action foreseen to try to restrain the uncertainties in this very important matter?

The Prime Minister: Yes, there was a most useful discussion on this topic. It was led by Chancellor Schmidt, who produced some interesting material for us to consider. We want to examine this area commodity by commodity, and that approach is generally agreed. We want particularly to see how we can stabilise earnings for the developing countries—that is exertmely important for countries with a mono-industry, where the country is dependent on one industry or one commodity—without at the same time creating an unbearable burden for the industrialised countries. This matter can be best approached commodity by commodity.

Mr. Crawford: The Prime Minister said earlier that he was misreported about having said at Puerto Rico that there would be further public expenditure cuts. Will he therefore give a categorical assurance that there will be no further public expenditure cuts in Scotland next year? If he will do so, he will be at one with the SNP.

The Prime Minister: What I said in my previous answers applies to Scotland as to the rest of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Newens: My right hon. Friend said that he could make no commitment about future cuts in public expenditure beyond the end of this year. Will he make clear to the House that he made no commitment or statement at Puerto Rico which could give the impression there that in response to pressure brought upon him he intends to make any such cuts in future? Will he make sure that he consults fully Labour Back Benchers, who sustain the Government?

The Prime Minister: I thought that I had already answered that question. It


does not add to the weight of my reply to repeat it on a dozen occasions. I hope that my position and that of the Government is clear. If there are proposals to bring forward for next year, I shall bring them forward in good time to enable my party and the House to discuss them so that industry and the country generally is aware of them. That is how I want to tackle the matter, and I give no assurances beyond April 1977 in that regard.

Mr. Mayhew: On the subject of unemployment, is it not the case that about 6 million people are employed at present by those who are self-employed? Did the Prime Minister give any assurance to his international colleagues that he would seek to reduce unemployment by ceasing to penalise the self-employed?

The Prime Minister: We did not discuss that aspect of the matter.

Mr. Atkinson: My right hon. Friend has not yet made clear what his intentions are except that it is loosely held that the Government are to review the situation with a view to cutting public expenditure. Does he accept that there is a substantial and determined body of British opinion that believes that public expenditure is far too low and that it should be increased considerably if we are determined to do something about our level of unemployment? Is it not a fact that there are ways, by modifying our free market system, in which we can increase public expenditure by a tremendous amount without impeding the Government's effort to reduce the rate of inflation?

The Prime Minister: That seems to me more a subject on which I should have to reply in a debate rather than in question and answer. However, public expenditure is not an absolute. There are many sectors of our social life where more public expenditure would be beneficial. Every day, and especially this afternoon when I listened to Questions to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, points are raised by both sides of the House which would require more public expenditure if we are to meet the genuine needs of the people concerned.
However, we have an overriding requirement to ensure that industry is

able to finance itself in the proper way to provide a dividend which will enable social expenditure to be met. That is the problem this country has to face. We cannot evade it by increasing public expenditure without regard to the needs of manufacturing industry, and it is on that I want to focus the eyes of the nation over the next few months.

Mr. Tugendhat: If these meetings are to become a regular feature of the international scene, is there any role for the European Commission to play as a participant or an observer? In addition to the question of commodity prices, does the Prime Minister not agree that the whole manner and method of the Japanese export drive, with its lack of regard for the interests of others, is a very serious destabilising factor? Was this drawn to the attention of the Japanese Prime Minister?

The Prime Minister: There are no regular meetings of this group. They depend upon whether an individual Head of Government decides that it would be valuable for a group meeting to take place. No other meetings have been arranged, although they could take place if a Head of Government felt that meetings would be valuable and his colleagues agreed. I took the opportunity of discussing some of the consequences of the Japanese export drive with Japan's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, though not with the Minister of Finance, because there were difficulties about that.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall allow only two more questions.

Mr. Gow: As the Prime Minister has just told us that the strength of sterling is one of his main concerns, and as our foreign creditors will be listening very closely to what he is saying, will the right hon. Gentleman repudiate the suggestion of his hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) that public expenditure is far too low?

The Prime Minister: I have already answered that question. I can add nothing to it. I have made clear the priorities which I believe the country has to accept during the next year. I hope that that will be taken as representing the policy we intend to follow.

Mr. Frank Allaun: Whether the Press reports are accurate or not, would the rumoured savage cuts in public expenditure next year not only damage our social fabric but also cause additional unemployment among, for instance, nurses, teachers, home helps and building workers? If my right hon. Friend replies that we must keep room for industry and exports, would he not agree that unemployment in Britain is so massive that there is room to cover both industry and social services?

The Prime Minister: This is a difficult technical question which should be dealt with in the debate that I hope we shall have at a later stage. I should point out once more than the salaries of all the very worthy groups to which my hon. Friend referred—nurses, teachers and other social groups—are paid for by the product of manufacturing industry. They are not created out of nothing. Therefore that must be our first priority next year.

ANGOLA (MERCENARIES)

The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Edward Rowlands): I will, with permission, make a statement on mercenaries in Angola.
As the House will have read in today's Press, three of the 10 British subjects tried by the Angolan People's Revolutionary Tribunal in Luanda have been sentenced to death. They are Costas Georgiou, Andrew MacKenzie and John Barker.
Two of the other British subjects on trial have been sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment, three others to 24 years and two to 16 years.
The sentences were relayed immediately to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in Puerto Rico. He promptly sent a personal message to Dr. Neto, President of the People's Republic of Angola, seeking clemency on behalf of the British subjects who have been sentenced to death.
Our immediate concern is for the three men facing sentence of death. This does not, of course, preclude subsequent representations on behalf of those sentenced to imprisonment.
I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree that while

the lives of British subjects are at stake, it would not be helpful for me to say more.

Mr. Maudling: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his statement. Is he aware that the Prime Minister should not merely be seeking clemency for these British subjects, but demanding justice? Is the Minister satisfied that the three men sentenced to death had a fair trial? In regard to the others who appear to have been sentenced not for specific crimes but solely for being mercenaries, which is not and never has been a crime in national and international law, does the Minister agree that many British subjects have taken part in civil wars, such as the Spanish Civil War? Does he agree that we are faced not with justice but with political reprisal masquerading as justice? Does he think that if the other faction had won, 15,000 Cubans would have been sentenced to 30 years in gaol?

Mr. Rowlands: If the Government made the statement that the right hon. Gentleman has just made, it would be counter-productive and not conducive to helping the representations we are making on behalf of British subjects facing the death sentence. I do not intend to follow the right hon. Gentleman. I accept that in international law it is not a crime to be a mercenary. Nor is it a crime in British law, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in the House on 16th June, but we are not sure of the position in Angolan law.

Mr. Grocott: While the position of hon. Members on this side of the House, who have consistently opposed capital punishment as an abhorrent method of punishment and fervently hope that these men will receive the clemency that is their due, is absolutely consistent, is not a rather strange position adopted by some hon. Members opposite, who apparently believe that killing people in Britain is properly punishable by execution but that those who kill people in Angola should receive clemency?

Mr. Rowlands: Our immediate task is to make representations to obtain clemency for those sentenced to death. No comment that I might make in reply to my hon. Friend would be helpful at this stage.

Mr. Amery: In his efforts to protect the lives and liberties of British subjects,


would the Minister of State consider making representations to the Organisation of African Unity? Is he aware that I understand that the Organisation's Foreign Ministers are now meeting in Mauritius, whose Prime Minister, the President-elect of the OAU, is a distinguished Commonwealth statesman? Would he also make strong representations to Havana and Moscow and gently remind those two Governments that some of their citizens might have been in the dock on similar charges if the fortunes of war had gone the other way?

Mr. Rowlands: We have considered many ways of making representations but concluded that by far the most appropriate was direct representation at the highest level by the Prime Minister to the President of Angola, who has power to grant clemency in these cases.

Mr. Dalyell: Was not the analogy between the Spanish Civil War and the Angolan Civil War which was drawn by the right lion. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling) in a BBC radio broadcast this morning rather inappropriate, not least because, on this occasion, the British Government begged the mercenaries not to go to Angola?

Mr. Rowlands: We certainly begged them not to go. Our position was made very clear. Once they decided to go, we had no right to stop them. They had the right to leave the country. The analogy with other occasions in history, such as the Spanish Civil War, may not be appropriate in this case.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Can the Minister of State say whether the report of the official observer and his studies of the trial confirm the generally-held impression that in regard to a number of the accused, including my constituent, Mr. Wiseman, there is no evidence of participation in any atrocities, which all would deplore? This being so, would the Minister not confine his representations to the issue of the death penalty but also make representations that no sentences should be put into operation if people have been gaoled solely for being mercenaries—which is not, and never has been, regarded as an offence in international law?

Mr. Rowlands: We have not had the opportunity to study in detail the verdict,

which runs to many pages, and have not yet received the final report from our observer at the trial. I do not think that I should pursue the questions raised by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. The representations we have made in an effort to save people's lives do not preclude us from making representations on the imprisonment of the other mercenaries.

Mr. Ginsburg: I associate myself with the plea for mercy by the Prime Minister and my hon. Friend to the Angolan Government, but is my hon. Friend aware that although everyone is relieved that my constituent, Mr. Colin Evans, is not to be executed, a sentence of 24 years' imprisonment for no offence in international law, and no involvement in atrocities, is morally outrageous and abhorrent to the House? Secondly, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, will my hon. Friend repudiate any question of the Government's involvement in mercenary activities, as was outlined by the prosecution in the Luanda trial?

Mr. Rowlands: I confirm that we were involved in no complicity of any kind with the mercenaries who went to Angola. We have made that clear on so many occasions. I hope all hon. Members will also take an opportunity to do so. I do not think I should comment on the first part of my hon. Friend's question.

Sir Frederic Bennett: The Minister has rightly stated that there is no offence as such, in either British law or international law, in being a mercenary, but he ended his statement in a rather peculiar way by saying that he was not sure of Angolan law. Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that neither is the House sure of Angolan law? Will he clarify whether any documentation exists and when the law came into effect, bearing in mind that at the time in question there was no Angolan Government to have a law made on the subject?

Mr. Rowlands: I think that the hon. Gentleman has pointed his finger at the problem associated with making a statement on the position of Angolan law. As a result of the confusion and difficulties that have arisen, and the way in which the Angolan Government came to power, we have had to work on the basis of the indictments at the trial. We now, subsequently, want to investigate the indictments in greater detail and the nature of


the verdicts. I do not think I should forecast or anticipate what we might decide.

Mr. Lee: Whatever may be the case as regards the rest of the pathetic human detritus, does my hon. Friend accept that some of us would not welcome the reprieve of Costas Georgiou? However, if he is reprieved, may we have an assurance from the Government that he will be extradited for trial for the murder of some of his contemporaries, bearing in mind that a British citizen who commits a murder abroad is justiciable by English law?

Mr. Rowlands: The Prime Minister's plea for clemency is on behalf of all those who have been sentenced to death.

Mr. Charles Morrison: Whatever the rights or wrongs of Angolan law, does the Minister agree that the first priority is to obtain a delay so as to allow time for an appeal to take place, as would be normal in any civilised country?
Secondly, I emphasise the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) in relation to representations to the Governments in Havana and Moscow? Thirdly, is the hon. Gentleman aware that the family of Andrew McKenzie live in my constituency? I am sure that he will be aware of all the agonies of his family, and other families, in the same position? Will the Government give those families such assistance as is possible and, as they desire, enable them to communicate with the mercenaries under sentence?

Mr. Rowlands: As I understand it, the People's Revolutionary Tribunal is a supreme court and there is no provision for appeal. However, no death sentence can be carried out unless confirmed by the President. That is why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made direct representations and a plea for clemency to the President. That is why we felt that there was no reason for our going through other parties in this case.
As regards the assisting of families, I have been dealing with this matter for a number of weeks and I appreciate, as does the hon. Gentleman, the problems and agonies for parents and families associated with a number of the mercenaries who have been on trial. We

have had telephone contact today with the families of seven of the men. In most cases we have been able to offer to send a short message to the mercenary.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: I shall allow two more questions.

Mr. Bidwell: I agree with the Government's decision to appeal for clemency on behalf of all the convicted mercenaries, but will Her Majesty's Government point out to the Angolan Government that their standing in the eyes of the world will be that much better if they respond to international pressure, as will be the future of their society, about which we are all concerned?
Is my hon. Friend aware that some of the mercenaries had some convictions hanging about in this country? That begs the question how they got out through our ports in the first place. What do the Government intend to do in future about preventing the enrolment of mercenaries in this country in the face of the widespread African revolution which is taking place?

Mr. Rowlands: As regards my hon. Friend's first point, I am sure that that is one of the factors that the Angolan Government should consider when making their decision. As regards his second point, the difficulties and complexities that arose from the exodus of the mercenaries led to the setting up of the Diplock Commission, and we are awaiting its report.

Mr. Goodhew: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the British people are becoming increasingly angry about double standards in international affairs? Does he not appreciate how wrong it seems to the British people that British subjects should be tried for being mercenaries by a minority Government imposed by mercenary armies?

Mr. Rowlands: I do not understand the hon. Gentleman's reference to double standards. We have acted promptly to assist those who have behaved in a foolish and stupid way.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must get on.

PRIVATE BILL COMNIITTEES (Mr. SPEAKER'S RULING)

Mr. Speaker: Yesterday the hon. Member for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore) asked me to rule about a declaration which he was requested to sign by the Committee of Selection in connection with the Opposed Bill Committee to which he had been appointed on the Methodist Church Bill [Lords]. I have looked into the circumstances and I find, to my profound relief, that this is not a matter in which Mr. Speaker has any power to rule or to intervene.
The necessity for a form of declaration to be signed is clearly laid down in Standing Order 115 relating to Private Business. The actual form of the declaration is laid down in precise terms by Standing Order 120 relating to Private Business. The same Standing Order lays it down, as the Clerk to the Committee rightly pointed out to the hon. Gentleman, that a Private Bill Committee cannot proceed to business until a declaration has been signed by each member of the Committee. The duty of settling matters in relation to declarations is laid by Standing Order 116 on the Committee of Selection, and not upon Mr. Speaker. In accordance with that Standing Order, if the hon. Gentleman considers that he is not able to complete the declaration he should convey his reasons to the Committee of Selection.

Mr. Sedgemore: It has been pointed out to me since I raised this matter yesterday that the nation's wisest and most noble Methodist, Donald Soper, writes articles for Tribune—they are as distinguished and passionate as all the other articles in that paper—and maybe the Committee of Selection confuses my articles with his. I am bound to say, Mr. Speaker, that your ruling means that I shall have to give this matter anxious thought. I am sure that all the other Great Britain Members of this Chamber will have to give it anxious thought too.

MEMBERS (USE OF FACILITIES)

Mr. Wrigglesworth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I ask you to inform the House whether it is in order for private lobbyists to use the facilities of the House

and public funds. I have in my hand three letters that I have received, each purporting to come from South Wales and each referring to the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill. I obtained one of the letters earlier today from the Message Board in the Lobby in a House of Commons envelope. I believe that many other envelopes containing letters purporting to come from people from South Wales were placed on the board for hon. Members. It appears that this is a grave abuse of the facilities of the House and an improper use of public funds. I ask you to make an investigation, Mr. Speaker, and to rule whether it is in order for this to happen.

Mr. Lee: On a further point of order, Mr. Speaker. Does it not go further than that? Is it not a breach of privilege? Will you consider whether there has been a prima facie breach?

Mr. Ridley: When investigating that matter, if you so decide to do so, Mr. Speaker, will you investigate the fact that a large number of similar letters were placed in House of Commons envelopes, or on the Message Board, about the setting up of the Select Committee on Abortion a little while ago? Exactly the same thing happened on that occasion. Letters came to me from Scottish addresses in House of Commons envelopes franked "House of Commons". They were placed on the board. Clearly there has been an abuse in the past of a serious nature. If we are to investigate this minor matter, surely we should investigate the major one, too.

Mr. Cryer: You may recall, Mr. Speaker, that I raised this subject yesterday with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry. He agreed with me on the need for investigation into the way in which Bristol Channel Shipbuilders and Ship Repairers has used a firm called International News Service to attempt to alter the course of legislation in this House. This has involved the use of private dining rooms, which I understand in the last year have lost £56,000. Clearly, there has been some subsidy to a number of public relations companies. It seems to me that we should have a thorough-going investigation of the situation, in accordance with the view of the Secretary of State for Industry and many Labour Members.

Mr. Dalyell: Is it more than a coincidence that the letter on this topic that arrived for me should have come from Cardiff? [Interruption.] It would be more influential if they were sent to Mr. Speaker than to the Prime Minister.

Mr. Speaker: I have no interest to declare. I have nothing to do with this correspondence from Cardiff. I am advised that the use of House of Commons envelopes and paper is a matter for hon. Members themselves. The Third Report from the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) said quite clearly:
The decision in such matters must rest ultimately upon the good sense of individual Members and their continued regard to a strict interpretation of what constitutes their parliamentary as distinct from their party political or non-parliamentary work.
I shall examine the matter to see whether there is anything else I need to say to the House, but I certainly advise all right hon. and hon. Members to read the Third Report of the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services).

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, the provisions of Standing Order No. 53 (Re-committal of Bill) shall not apply to the Motion in the name of Mrs. Margaret Thatcher for the re-committal of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill to a Select Committee, and that the said Motion may be made after the time for opposed business, and if so made, the Question thereon shall be put forthwith.—[The Prime Minister.]

HOUSE OF LORDS REFORM

4.13 p.m.

Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision in regard to the voting rights in the House of Lords of hereditary peers by succession; and for related purposes.
I rise, with considerable trepidation, to introduce a Ten-Minute Bill on such a very large subject as reform of the House of Lords; but I feel it is not inappropriate to do so at this moment, for three reasons. First, there is growing public concern about the way in which our constitution operates. There is also increasing interest in the implications of devolution and of the impact of direct

European elections. And the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) attracted a good deal of attention to the subject on 16th June when he introduced a Ten-Minute Bill to abolish the House of Lords altogether. He secured the support of 150 Members or more, including—rather surprisingly—the Patronage Secretary and both the contenders for the Liberal Party leadership.
I believe that if we do not want to abolish the upper House altogether we must grasp the nettle of reform. My object is not to abolish two-Chamber government altogether but to strengthen the second Chamber and to broaden the character of its membership.
This is by no means a new objective. If we look back to the all-party conference in 1948 we find that a number of recommendations were then agreed and that most of them have been implemented. But two important recommendations of that conference have not yet been brought into effect. The first was that
the revised constitution of the House of Lords should be such as to secure as far as practicable that a permanent majority is not assured for any one political party".
The second was that
The present right to attend and vote based solely on heredity should not by itself constitute a qualification for admission to a reformed second Chamber.
The Life Peerages Act 1958 has begun to change the constitution of the House of Lords significantly. I understand that about 327 life peerages have been created up to date, but the total membership of the House of Lords is over 1,100, of which about 750 are peers by succession. Having myself succeeded to a baronetcy, I hope that hon. Members will not accuse me of trying to overthrow the social order. I am convinced that the hereditary principle is a weakness and an anachronism in the composition of the other House. It was not an anachronism even up to quite recent times under the system of primogeniture, which enabled a man to succeed to the land and estates of his father. Certainly in medieval times, and even into the nineteenth century, to succeed to a very large property was to make one a man with responsibility and authority simply by that fact. But when we realise that over 800 hereditary peerages have been created in this century, I am sure the House must


agree that not all the heirs of those 800 or more can claim that they should automatically acquire a powerful place in public life simply by virtue of succession.
I am seeking to make just one absolutely specific suggestion. It constitutes a one-clause Bill. It is that the sons of hereditary peers who succeed in future should be entitled to take part and to speak in the House of Lords, but not to vote. To modify the effects of that limitation, I suggest that the present peers by succession should have the right to claim voting rights if they wish, so that the continuity of the present House need not be disturbed in any way.
Besides the suggestions I would like to include in the Bill, I hope that we shall see another reform which possibly is overdue. I believe that the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee—which most people did not know existed until recent times—should be extended and strengthened. I believe that it needs to become a permanent Committee of the Privy Council, authorised to broaden the composition of the nominations to the House of Lords for life peerages and to protect the selection from too much political bias.
The effect of the changes I am recommending would be quickly to reduce, but not to eliminate, the hereditary element and to bring the representation of the parties into better balance. It would not end the contribution of the hereditary element altogether, because peers by succession could continue to take active part and to speak in the House of Lords, though not to vote. No doubt many of them would earn life peerages and be able to vote as well.
I know that some hon. Members believe that it now impossible to initiate legislation to reform the House of Lords, because they look back to the fate of the Parliament (No. 2) Bill and think that any other attempt to reform the House of Lords is bound to run into the sand. This may be a warning to the Government as to what lies ahead with their major constitutional reform promised for next Session. But in regard to the House of Lords the Life Peerages Act 1958, which was only a one-clause Bill, had an important impact on the House of Lords but was not considered to be so controversial that it was a major parliamentary

effort to get it through. The Peerages Act 1963, which enables peers to disclaim their rights, did not prove too controversial. Both those Bills were very short, as is the Bill that I am seeking to introduce today.
I hope that I have said enough to show that what I am seeking is a gradual reform of the House of Lords, which will strengthen it and broaden its hold on public respect. I should like to see in the House of Lords, taking part in its deliberations, the heads of professions, and the heads of industry and of the trade unions, as well as the main figures outside Parliament who influence public opinion. I think it strange that the Archbishop of Canterbury is automatically a Member of the House of Lords but that the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminister, for example, is not, and nor is the Chief Rabbi. There are many other figures who are much respected by the public but who do not have the automatic right to question Ministers or to take an active part in the processes of government under the present form of our constitution. This is a weakness in British public life which ought to be remedied. I am offering this Bill to the House as—I hope—a useful and practical contribution to the general debate on constitutional reform.

Mr. John Stokes (Halesowen and Stour-bridge): Mr. John Stokes (Halesowen and Stour-bridge) rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Does the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) intend to oppose the motion?

4.20 p.m.

Mr. Stokes: I wish to oppose this Bill, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The main ground of my objection is the attack on the hereditary principle—a principle embodied in English constitutional history and one that should not lightly be abandoned, above all by the Tory Party. It would certainly be quite wrong for such a revolutionary change to be enacted as the result of a Private Member's Bill—a Bill, to boot, brought forward by the holder of an hereditary title, although neither a bad nor a mad one.
There is no public demand whatever for what is proposed in this Bill, which is, in effect, a slow, constitutional killing-off of the powers to vote of the hereditary peerage, and the hereditary peerage remains much more popular than those


grey men, the life peers. The idea of more life peers, more creatures of the Prime Minister of the day, is utterly abhorrent to most people. The public at large far prefer peers of blue blood to the rather feeble pink of the new so-called peerage.
I should like a moratorium on the creation of any more life peers and a return to the creation of hereditary peers, which has, most unfortunately, lapsed since 1964. We all know that the Englishman loves a lord, a lord who is trained to be a lord, who looks like a lord and, furthermore, behaves like a lord.

Mr. Martin Flannery: The hon. Gentleman really means it.

Mr. Stokes: I do. It is a fact of political and social life that one very rarely meets an unpleasant hereditary peer. If we have to be modish, as no doubt the Government want to be, with all this talk of communication and putting people in the picture, the hereditary peer is already quite at home and invariably treats everyone, whether high or low, with perfect courtesy. My second objection—and this is a most serious one, over which the mover of the motion only skated—is that an attack of this kind on the hereditary peerage will inevitably lead, in time, to an attack on the hereditary monarchy and leave the Sovereign isolated.
My third and last objection is that with the huge devolution that is to come before the House we certainly cannot afford any further constitutional changes.
Having made this short protest, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I intend to divide the House on what I regard as a vital matter of constitutional principle.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 13 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of Public Business):—

The House proceeded to a Division; hut no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Ayes, Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Noes had it.

AIRCRAFT AND SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRIES BILL (PROCEDURE)

4.27 p.m.

Mr. Michael Heseltine: I beg to move,
That, in the event of an equality of votes in a division on the Motion in the name of Mrs. Margaret Thatcher for the re-committal of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill to a Select Committee, Mr. Speaker shall declare that the Question is agreed to.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): I understand that it will be for the convenience of the House to take at the same time the second motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and her hon. and right hon. Friends:
That the Order for consideration of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, as amended in the Standing Committee, be discharged, and that the Bill be re-committed to a Select Committee.

Mr. Bob Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is a re-run of an occasion on 27th May. You may recall that at the end of that day there were some terrible scenes involving the removal of the Mace. I wonder whether, in consequence, additional security provisions have been made to make sure that that does not occur again or whether the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) has taken some bromide in his water, so that if he again gets frustrated the awful scenes that we witnessed on that occasion will not be repeated.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a matter of order.

Mr. Heseltine: Labour Members should get it out of their system.
There are two motions before the House today. The second proposes that the original instructions of his House in respect of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill be supplemented by the additional stage, the Select Committee stage, appropriate to a Hybrid Bill. As the House will know, those original instructions were in common form for a Government Bill, and they committed the Bill for consideration by a Standing Committee. That is proper, although unusual, for a Hybrid Bill.
Between completion of Standing Committee proceedings and Report stage, evidence was put before Mr. Speaker by my hon. Friend the Member for


Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) to suggest that the House had not been in full possession of all the relevant information when it gave those original instructions. Subsequently, on 27th May, Mr. Speaker's ruling on my hon. Friend's evidence confirmed that the Bill was prima facie a Hybrid Bill. It was prima facie a Bill which bestowed special, privileged treatment on Marathon Shipbuilders a particular group of people similar to the majority to whom no such privilege was offered or available.
For reasons to which I shall return, the Government immediately put down a motion to dispense with the Standing Orders that would otherwise have required the House to pass a motion submitting the Bill to a Select Committee, where the time-honoured rights of individuals who considered themselves aggrieved would be exercised by allowing them to appear before hon. Members and state their case, directly or by representation. It was the motion to set aside the practices of the House that became the centre of the controversy that divided the House before Whitsun.
On the evening of the first debate, the House was invited to vote not only on the Government's motion to suspend Standing Orders but on the Opposition's amendment which asked it to send the Bill to a Select Committee. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that on that Thursday night the Divisions would be critically close. Every Opposition party had intimated its intention to vote against the Government's motion.
My information very early that afternoon, taking into account all the evidence that was known at the time, none of which has been contradicted by hindsight, was that each side of the House would have 303 Members in its Lobby. Not only did we know of the likelihood that the Divisions would result in a tie, but we knew what would happen if precedent was followed. On the first vote Mr. Speaker was committed by precedent to give his casting vote against the Opposition's amendment because it sought to change the status quo. On the second, on the Government's motion, Mr. Speaker was similarly bound by precedent to vote against a motion which altered the existing situation by suspending the Standing Orders then in force.
This is a critical recital of facts which are central to this debate. On the occasion of the critical second vote on 27th May, it was known in advance that if Mr. Speaker was to be guided by precedent his casting vote would go against the Government's motion dispensing with Standing Orders. It is that fact that raises the need for the first motion before the House.
Mr. Speaker is largely guided by precedent. Should there be a dead heat in the Lobby tonight on the motion to commit the Bill to a Select Committee, precedent requires that Mr. Speaker gives his casting vote against the motion, and I understand that it is his intention so to vote. There are two reasons. The first is that the recommittal motion is in the form of an amendment to the Government's Notice of Motion, and if Mr. Speaker votes according to precedent he will vote against all amendments. Secondly, the situation is now, as a consequence of the disputed vote, that Standing Orders have been dispensed with as they affect this Bill. Mr. Speaker is therefore required by precedent to vote against any motions that change the existing position as it was brought about by the disputed vote.
It is our conviction that the technicalities of the procedures cannot be separated from the equity of the position. The practical effect of the form of our procedures today is that, on the critical issue whether the Bill is examined by a Select Committee, the casting vote should go tonight the opposite way to that in which it would have gone on the disputed vote on 27th May.
In his statement on 22nd June, the Prime Minister recognised the sense of grievance felt by all of us on this side of the House—

Mr. Norman Buchan: Mr. Norman Buchan (Renfrewshire, West) rose—

Mr. Heseltine: This is a complicated argument, and I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would allow me to deploy it as fairly as I can.
The Prime Minister told hon. Members that it would be in the best interests of the House if the Government provided the opportunity for the issues on which the votes were taken on 27th May to be considered again and for the matter to be put to the vote in an appropriate way.


We share that view, but we are determined that if the Government genuinely wish to remove that grievance the crucial votes tonight shall be taken in circumstances which reflect the practical position on the original occasion. To achieve that, the House must give Mr. Speaker guidance, without which, on precedent, he would have no discretion. We must instruct Mr. Speaker that if tonight on the substantive motion there is a tie he should vote with the same effect as he would have voted four weeks ago if there had not been the dispute.
The first motion we debate today gives precisely such an instruction. It is designed simply to enable the Government to demonstrate the good faith that underlines the whole working of our parliamentary procedures.

Mr. Buchan: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that behind all this verbiage is the simple point that what angered him last time, when he picked up the Mace, he is now seeking to repeat? He cried "Foul" last time and spoke about changing the rules, but now he has moved a motion precisely to bring about a foul.

Mr. Heseltine: I understand that it is the Prime Minister's wish that the sense of grievance be removed. That can be done only by putting right that which is wrong. That which is wrong lies in the activities which caused the dispute about the second vote on 27th May. There is no way in which the hon. Gentleman can argue that because we have before us different technical motions we should achieve a different result although the votes cast would be the same. That we dispute. I understand how deeply Labour Members feel, but Opposition Members feel equally deeply.
It is very important that this issue, which the Prime Minister said he wished to see resolved, should be clearly understood. We are not asking for a different set of circumstances. We are merely asking that the circumstances which led to the dispute of 27th May be reproduced as accurately as is within our gift on the vote tonight.

Mr. Buchan: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there was no challenge by us to precedents on the last occasion, and no seeking to change the rules which Mr. Speaker followed? On this occasion it is the precedent and Mr. Speaker's action that are being challenged, and the

Opposition seek by their motion to change them.

Mr. Heseltine: I do not wish to take up the charge in the language which is just below the surface. The Government on 27th May did not expect that there would be a need to behave in the way in which they did in order to secure the result that they achieved in the second Division. They believed that the normal procedures of the House would give them a majority. It was only when they realised after the first vote that that majority would escape them that they indulged in the activities which led to the current dispute. There is no way round that.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: The hon. Gentleman said that the Conservatives had done their homework and that he knew in advance that the voting would be 303 to 303. Bearing in mind that SNP Members had to miss the first day of their conference, must not the hon. Gentleman have known that one of his hon. Friends was in Corfu and that another was in South Africa?

Mr. Heseltine: I knew exactly what the hon. Lady said. I took those calculations into account when giving the figures to the House.
It is necessary for us to give guidance to Mr. Speaker so that he may with effect vote to achieve precisely what he would have voted for on the second Division on 27th May. That is the issue which is now the subject of the need for urgent clarification of the Government's intentions about the motion and about guidance to Mr. Speaker.
Our motion is designed simply to enable the Government to demonstrate the fundamental good faith which the Prime Minister expressed in his statement to the House on 22nd June. The Prime Minister rightly said that the matter should be considered again. That is precisely our view—no more, no less. There must be the same votes, with the same consequences, under the same conditions.
I ask the Secretary of State for Industry, who is to open the debate for the Government, for an assurance that the instruction to Mr. Speaker tonight will not be opposed by the Government in the Lobby at the earliest stage tonight. If that assurance is not forthcoming, if there is a tie on the substantive motion subsequently and if it is carried by the casting


vote of Mr. Speaker, the Government must understand that we should in no way regard today's events as a fair repeat of the previous debate involving the disputed vote.
The Government have advanced two broad lines of argument to justify the original decision of the Leader of the House to invite the House to suspend Standing Orders. First, they argue a combination of the views that either the hybridity procedures as set out in Standing Orders apply only provided that the hybridity is detected or recognised before Second Reading or, despite the prima facie hybridity, that it has arisen only from careless drafting of the definition clauses, which may easily be rectified on Report.
Secondly, the Government argue that the problems facing the two industries are so serious that the technical niceties of hybridity must not be allowed to stand in the way of substantial unemployment. I urge the House to reject all three arguments. I shall explain why.
The suggestion that hybridity must be proved at a particular stage in a Bill's proceedings is totally without foundation. It is obviously desirable that the information should be available upon which Mr. Speaker and the examiners must reach a judgment at the earliest moment. But that in no way leads to the argument that, as Mr. Speaker did not have all the relevant information, the constitutional rights of British subjects go by default. There is no statute of limitations on constitutional rights. Such rights exist precisely because over the centuries Parliament has properly imposed strict discipline upon itself when it came to deal with its ability to single out individuals for adverse or favourable treatment. Equity before the law is incompatible with arbitrary government.
The case of Marathon is exactly the sort of case which Parliament in its wisdom has designed procedures to avoid. As an inducement to bring that company to Britain for the politically desirable objective of protecting jobs on the Clyde, an assurance was given by the then Conservative Government, and backed by the Labour Opposition, that Marathon alone of all other companies in a similar line

of business would not be nationalised. That was the deal. That was a privilege which was arbitrarily bestowed on that one company.
The Conservative Party had no difficulty in giving an assurance that we should not do something that we had no intention of doing anyway. So that no one should believe that these matters do not create precedents and anomalies, however, let me remind the House of the position of Greenwell's on the Tyne today. That firm is owned by the State through the North-East Coast Ship Repairers. That company took the decision to close Greenwell's, with the loss of hundreds of jobs. For months Bristol Channel Ship Repairers Limited has been seeking a meeting to discuss the rescue of that company, as it had previously rescued a similar company in Swansea. What possible case is there for denying that company the same privilege as was given to Marathon? Why in 1972 should an American company be singled out for special immunity from nationalisation to secure jobs on the Clyde when in 1976 a Welsh company cannot obtain an identical privilege to save jobs on the Wear? Yet already that is the wholly indefensible position at which we have arrived.
I know that the Labour Party does not like a private company mobilising its workers to resist nationalisation. But that is quite irrelevant to the issue we are discussing. The issue is that the Government are denying that company and its workers their rights to put their case for parity of treatment with an American company to a Select Committee of this House. We find that precedent repugnant.
The Opposition do not wish to see this Bill proceed. We do not wish to see these industries nationalised. We shall use every constitutional means at our disposal to stop that. The Labour Party would do precisely the same in similar circumstances if it was in our position. Today the Government have a chance to reconsider the gaping precedent that they are in danger of creating. In the usual way of politics, the Labour Party will find itself again in Opposition. What would a Labour Opposition say if a Conservative Government used the precedent that a Labour Government are threatening to create to deal with one subject?

Mr. George Cunningham: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in every nationalisation measure that has been passed by the House some companies have been nationalised and some have not, and that in no single case has the Bill been treated as, or been, a Hybrid Bill? That was acceptable to the House on all occasions. Companies were not given the right to appear before a Committee in petition fashion. The suggestion that that is a normal part of the proceedings of Parliament does not bear examination.

Mr. Heseltine: I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman seeks to make. It was because this Bill did not appear to be a Hybrid Bill, and was, therefore, on all fours with earlier nationalisation measures, that it reached such a stage in the deliberations of the House. However, it turned out that the evidence upon which those earlier judgments had been made were ill founded.
There is no precedent for any previous nationalisation measure having been submitted to Mr. Speaker and being found to be prima facie a Hybrid Bill, or for a Government to say "We shall sweep away the proceedings under which we normally deal with Hybrid Bills". This makes for a unique situation. It is a precedent.

Mr. Neil Kinnock: I refer to the specific matter of Greenwell's and the Bristol Channel Ship Repairers Limited. As the hon. Gentleman is so well informed and so keen to attain what he calls parity with the treatment of an American company, will he say whether the Bristol Channel company went looking for Greenwell's before or after the proceedings on a Bill which caused so much concern on its Second Reading? Will he say whether the apparent hybridity and the discovery of the rig question was made before or after the Bristol Channel company went looking for Greenwell's? Does the hon. Gentleman think that these matters may be of great relevance when considering the question of parity with the American company, which is an entirely different case?

Mr. Heseltine: Although I may answer both questions factually, neither is in any way relevant to the constitutional pre-

cedent. The only relevant fact is that Mr. Speaker ruled that this was prima facie a Hybrid Bill. That is the only precedent that should concern us.
To answer the question, however, to the best of my knowledge Bristol Channel Ship Repairers Limited did not seek Greenwell's before Second Reading as at that time it was a continuing business and had not been put into liquidation. It was only after Greenwell's was put into liquidation, with the loss of hundreds of jobs, that the Bristol Channel company said "We are prepared to consider whether we may save the company". It took months for the owners to persuade the Minister to agree to a meeting. It is true that in the meantime the hybridity evidence emerged. I did not produce the evidence for the hybridity. I do not believe that there was a connection between the two events. I suspect that some hon. Members may have more detailed knowledge than I do on this matter. I rest on the point I first made—that the issue is wholly irrelevant to Mr. Speaker's ruling about prima facie hybridity.

Mr. Kinnock: Might it not be the case that, without any malevolence, the managing director of Bristol Channel Ship Repairers went looking for this yard in the sure knowledge that some nationalisation had taken place, that further nationalisation was to take place, and that there was no question of denationalisation taking place? Is it not relevant to say that, with the greatest respect to Mr. Bailey, he is, to say the least, a politically motivated man?

Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman raises a range of interesting and important questions in the context of the example that I have given. It is precisely because these questions exist that the hybridity procedures exist as well, so that the questions can be asked by hon. Members and answered by the people who alone can answer them. That is what the issue is all about it is simply because we are denying that company—and who knows who else—the right to have these cases ventilated, and it is a classic example of the problems that are encountered when the precedents of hybridity are breached. I think that the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) has made my case for me in a most eloquent way.

Mr. Ron Thomas: The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Standing Order under which the hybridity rule is dealt with. He said that he would convince us by raising some other precedent, or some other Standing Order, that what the Government had said about the Second Reading under the relevant Standing Order was not acceptable, but he has not done so. I ask him whether he is suggesting that the hybridity demand can be used at any stage and whether it could even be raised after a Bill had become law. If so, what would the position be then?

Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman must understand that I am not the judge in answering these questions. The Speaker of the House of Commons judges these matters. Government supporters must understand that hon. Members on either side of the House would not be able to agree upon a whole range of issues if we did not trust the Speaker to arbitrate between us. That is the process which the application of Standing Orders brings about. It is because the Government, in an arbitrary way, have found the ruling of the Speaker unacceptable that they have swept the Standing Orders away from the precedents with which we are now dealing.
That is the dangerous situation that we have reached. It is not right or reasonable that Government supporters should ask me to answer questions when there is a proper procedure for seeking the answers in a wholly constitutional way.
The next argument put before us is that the drafting of the Bill is a mere technical matter, which is easily rectified on Report. I know that the Secretary of State for Industry will wish to advance that theory. However, that argument highlights the fact that it is the purpose of the Bill to contain provisions by which one company is deliberately excluded.
The fact is that this Bill is and always has been a Hybrid Bill. The draftsmen were instructed so to draft it that Marathon was left out. They acted on the best information available to them to hide the hybridity—[Interruption]. That is what they were told to do. They were told to draft the Bill so that Marathon was excluded from it.
The same industrial advisers who advised the draftsmen of this Bill also advised the Speaker in the early stages—

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton) rose—

Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) can make his own speech in due time. I have given way several time already.

Mr. Heffer: Mr. Heffer rose—

Mr. Heseltine: The same industrial advisers—

Mr. Heffer: Mr. Heffer rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) does not wish to give way, he must not be pressed.

Mr. Heffer: Mr. Heffer rose—

Mr. Heseltine: The same industrial—

Mr. Heffer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) is deliberately trying to mislead the House, and I am entitled on that basis, as one of the Ministers responsible at that time, to reply to the point made by the hon. Gentleman. He is once again deliberately misleading—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), should he catch the eye of the occupant of the Chair, will have an opportunity to reply in due course.

Mr. Heseltine: Mr. Heseltine rose—

Mr. Ron Thomas: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I understood the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) to say that either Ministers or civil servants had deliberately hidden the hybridity. If that is not a reflection upon my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), I do not know what is.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member for Henley must be allowed to continue with his speech. No doubt he will explain the position.

Mr. Heseltine: I do not wish to change the views that I have expressed. This Bill was deliberately drafted to exclude


Marathon, and, in that context, it w as a Hybrid Bill from start to finish.
The same industrial advisers who advised the legal draftsmen and who advised Mr. Speaker about the original possibility of hybridity actually got the advice which they gave totally wrong. That is in no way the responsibility of the legal draftsmen. It is in no way the responsibility of the Speaker, or of the Clerks of this House. It is wholly the responsibility of the industrial advisers in the Department of Industry and of the Secretary of State for that Department.
It was not until—

Mr. Buchan: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hesitate to raise a point of order, but I have been thinking deeply about it over the last few minutes. I think that we have a situation in which the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) should be asked by you to withdraw his previous remark that a deliberate attempt was made to hide the hybridity and that in this context Ministers, draftsmen and civil servants were involved. I ask you seriously to consider requesting the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his assertion.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: On a further point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Some of us on the Opposition side of the House who will be seeking to catch your eye in the debate are becoming extremely annoyed about the use of bogus points of order to make points of substance against my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) which could perfectly well be made if only the hon. Gentlemen concerned were prepared to wait and to seek to catch your eye later in the debate. Can you rule that points of order must be points of order?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Earlier in these exchanges, I suggested to the hon. Member for Walton that, should he succeed in catching the eye of the occupant of the Chair, he would be able to answer the points that were being made.

Mr. Buchan: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am not making this either as a bogus point of order or as an irrelevancy, nor can it be answered by hon. Members on either side of the House in their contributions to

the debate. My point of order is to ask you to give guidance to the hon. Member for Henley to withdraw his assertion, which amounted to accusing people of lying and of having deliberately—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I repeat what I said in reply to an earlier point of order. The hon. Member for Henley must be allowed to make his arguments in his own way.

Mr. John Watkinson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not the case that the Speaker ruled that the Bill was prima facie hybrid and not that it was actually hybrid, which is the supposition being put forward by the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine)?

Mr. Heseltine: This Bill was always recognised as, potentially, a Hybrid Bill. It was drafted in the Department of Industry, on the industrial advice of the expert, in such a way that the Department thought it could get round the problems of hybridity by leaving Marathon out. It was only after the diligent and patient researches of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton that the realities were unearthed and the hybridity, which it had been the Department's intention to remove, was shown still to exist in Mr. Speaker's prima facie ruling. That is the situation. It may be uncomfortable to Opposition Members to have it spelled out, but their discomfort does not change the realities of the attempt to try to honour the commitments to Marathon that it would be excluded from any nationalisation proposals.

Mr. Heffer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Heseltine: No. I told the hon. Gentleman that we have already dealt with this point, and hon. Members can argue about it further when they make their own speeches.
It is our view that Governments should not be allowed to single out cases for special treatment to suit a particular political convenience by the party in power. This Government knew the rules. They broke the rules, they were caught, and they now seek to suspend the rules. That is a dangerous and unacceptable step to take.
The third argument, which the Government put forward to justify what they seek to do, is that so great now is the crisis facing these two industries that only nationalisation can save the jobs involved. The Minister of State never stops saying it. Let us examine the argument. Frankly, I have no criticism to make of those who, genuinely believing that nationalisation can save jobs, urge that political expedient on the politicians. My criticism is really reserved for those who are prepared to delude the workers in the industry into believing that this argument has any validity at all. Nationalisation has largely been an instrument for running down outdated industries more slowly than would otherwise have happened. The jobs in the mines, railways, and in steel, have gone but they have gone more slowly. In slowing down the rate of change, untold millions of the nation's assets have been diverted, for political reasons, into preserving lower-paid jobs in declining industries, and taxes have been levied on the strong, successful companies which would otherwise have absorbed far more people into higher-paid and more secure employment as Britain deluded itself that the world would support our economy at levels of efficiency now sadly trailing further and further behind the Western world.
The shipbuilding industry is being rationalised across the Western World. In no other country is nationalisation the remedy. In every other country the real wages of workers are rising faster than ours, and we are behaving as though we can break out of this spiral by cocooning the least productive parts of our industrial economy. Many of our shipbuilding companies are profitable, have long order books, and good industrial relations, and are even today securing orders competitively. Others have deep-seated problems. But on the statute book is every power that this Government need to deal with these problems. Indeed, they have had all the necessary powers to tackle the problems since the day they were first elected, as they have never ceased to point out as they have rescued company after company, usually in the least effective way possible.
The issues in the aircraft manufacturing industry centre on only two problems—the future projects that will determine

the workload and the international relationships that our companies can negotiate. There would be no difficulty in achieving a voluntary negotiated nationalisation of this industry at home, at trivial cost to the national taxpayer. As I have already told the House, I had virtually got such agreement as long ago as 1973. But if funds are available, and one is debating project alternatives, what conceivable excuse is left to a Government who possess all the powers that backed the BAC111, Trident and Concorde, among others, and yet, after two years of their administration, have no project in sight? The Minister of State says that he is talking to the French about the Airbus. That is better news. It would have been incomparably better still if his Government had not cancelled the Government's rôle in that project and left the free enterprise Hawker Siddeley to use its own money to back a project that the last Labour Government rejected. It is a curious sense of justice that the reward Hawkers get for its courage is to find the whole business taken off it; no special offer of arbitrary preference to Hawker Siddeley; just appropriation of one-third of its business. The only people who get special preferential offers from this Government are American multinationals.
It really is the saddest of experiences to listen to Ministers in this Government denigrating the efforts and successes of these two industries, pointing to the crisis that is about to overwhelm them, and then presenting a proposal to the House to spend £300 million of taxpayers' money buying up 43 companies so that they can run them down. The only significant nationalised body in the aircraft industry is to be found in France. Compare its record over the last four years, where it has accumulated losses of £160 million, with the ever-larger profits achieved by Hawkers and BAC!
That is the argument against the Nationalisation Bill itself. That argument is redoubled in intensity when the only way to get the Bill on the statute book is to undermine the fundamental constitutional rights of one of the greatest democracies in the world, and we shall vote to stop it.

5.6 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Eric G. Varley): I was hoping that


we could at least have had this debate on a much more even keel than the last debate, but I am afraid that the exaggerated language of the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) makes that virtually impossible. In fact, his whole speech is a total, and wanton, distortion of the facts of the Government's case, and he knows it.
One of the most interesting things which have come out of this debate so far is that the Opposition have, for the first time, admitted that if the industry is not taken into public ownership the jobs will disapppear much more quickly. That is certainly what the hon. Gentleman said.

Mr. John Peyton: indicated dissent.

Mr. Varley: If the right. hon. Gentleman did not hear that, he was was not listening very closely. The hon. Member for Henley said that public money preserved jobs and he would rather prevent that and let the industry run down and use the money for other industries.
He also lectured this side of the House about procedures. I do not want to labour the point, but I think he is probably the last person in the House to lecture to us about the sanctity of parliamentary procedures.
There are other parts of his opening remarks on which I must touch now before I forget them. The hon. Gentleman rather suggested that we deceived Parliament by trying to construct the Bill and hide hybridity. That is the offence with which he charged us. The Government made it perfectly plain on numerous occasions that we had no intention of taking Marathon Shipbuilding (United Kingdom) into public ownership. The hon. Gentleman knows that because we said, as I explained at the time, that it was building a rig. I could distinguish a rig in 1974 and I can distinguish a rig now. I do not want to say more about that. The hon. Gentleman knows that the consultative document, proposed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy when he was Secretary of State for Industry, made it plain in July 1974 that we had no intention of taking Marathon into public ownership. For him now to suggest that we are deceiving the House is again a distortion and it is unworthy of the hon. Gentleman to suggest it.
On 26th May Mr. Speaker ruled that the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill was prima facie hybrid. The following day he indicated that it was an area of doubt that led him, following the ruling of Mr. Speaker Hylton-Foster some years ago, to decide that because of that doubt he must come down on that side.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: On a point of order. Is it possible, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to arrange for a statement on the catering strike in the House of Commons?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Chair has no knowledge of any such situation.

Mr. Bottomley: Further to the point or order. I am not asking for an immediate reply. Can investigations be made so that the House can be informed at a later time if the situation calls for it?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: No, not without the leave of the House.

Mr. Varley: We are debating a serious problem affecting two major industries, and the only thing that the hon. Gentleman is worried about is whether he will get a tea break.
The ruling by Mr. Speaker is that the House had to take a decision on how to proceed. No Standing Order governed the unique situation which had arisen, of a Bill being declared prima facie hybrid after it had received a Second Reading and completed its Committee stage after 58 sittings. The Government's view was that the Bill should continue to be treated as a Public Bill on the understanding that, on Report, we would introduce an amendment to remove any possible doubt. We remain convinced that our method of dealing with the situation created by Mr. Speaker's ruling was the correct one.
I entirely agree that the issue of hybridity itself is not a trivial one. On the contrary, the established procedure for dealing with Hybrid Bills is an essential safeguard for private interests who might otherwise have no redress against discriminatory treatment.
It is quite wrong to suggest that today's Opposition motion is somehow a more proper method than that proposed by the Government. Of course their proposal to commit the Bill to a Select Committee


does not represent some high standard of constitutional propriety. It is merely a device—I do not blame them for trying it—to frustrate the vote in favour of the Bill on Second Reading, which expressed the true will of the House.
This is demonstrated by so many of the petitions which have been tabled—petitions which are not, in any real sense, about the point on which the question of hybridity was raised, petitions which, to a remarkable extent, deal with ship repair, an activity not involved in the matters raised last month which led to Mr. Speaker's ruling. This platoon of petitioners are taking advantage of the circumstances—again, I do not blame them for trying to do so—to attack the principle of public ownership and the principle of this Bill and the essentially public policies on which it is based.
However, it is not my wish to dwell on the procedural aspects of this matter, except to answer one question put to me by the hon. Member for Henley. He asked whether we accepted the first motion on the Order Paper. I think that he knows that we do not accept it. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House made absolutely plain last week when he was asked a specific question by the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the House will go into more detail when he has listened to hon. Members during the course of the debate and when he winds up the debate. I want to deal with the damage that will occur to the aircraft and shipbuilding industries if the Bill is further delayed.
I hope that the House will decisively reject the Opposition motion tonight. Indeed, I ask for the rejection of both motions because the situation in both industries covered by this Bill is so crucial that any further delay in its passage could prove fatal to whole aircraft factories and whole shipbuilding regions. That is the fire the Tory Party is playing with, but it is the workers and the country who would get burned.

Mr. Ridley: When the right hon. Gentleman uses the argument about the potential damage, whether it is there or not, is he saying that the events of 27th May, which the Prime Minister has identified as not being strictly in accordance with what they should have been,

are justified simply by the damage which might have been caused? Is he advancing the constitutional doctrine that one can ignore the proprieties of parliamentary performance—the result of votes, the stages laid down for Bills—if, in the Government's opinion, the economic advantage of so doing is great enough? That is a wicked argument that he is setting out upon.

Mr. Varley: I am saying nothing of the kind and the hon. Gentleman knows it. There have been discussions about whether we should have this debate. Some have described it as a re-run debate. I have no objection to that, but the delay in proceeding with the Bill as a Public Bill, as we propose, is damaging to both these industries. That is my case.
At Question Time yesterday, hon. Members opposite were deploring the fact that the aircraft industry had not embarked on any major new projects since we took office. My hon. Friend the Minister of State made it clear, and I repeat now, that the industry under private enterprise has not come forward with one proposal for a major new project during that time. It has put a few proposals to us involving total underwriting by the Government. That is not much of an achievement for this country's privately-owned industry. It is no longer prepared to back projects with its own money, with its own judgment and with its own hard cash.

Mr. Heseltine: I wonder what the Secretary of State expected the private sector to do, knowing that the only policy that this Government have is to nationalise it.

Mr. Varley: There is nothing in the legislation to prevent projects from being processed while the legislation was going through during the whole of this Parliament. What is more, in many comparable situations, when industries have been taken into public ownership, managements have behaved responsibly and pursued projects.
Yet the time for decision on future aircraft projects, including collaboration with foreign partners, is fast approaching. Potential foreign partners are looking to the nationalised British Aerospace as a partner with which they are ready to negotiate. This has emerged quite clearly


from the discussions conducted by my hon. Friend the Minister of State. It is under the auspices of the Organising Committee for British Aerospace that significant progress has been made and the momentum of studies has been stepped up.
I say quite solemnly that unless we get on with nationalisation quickly the British aircraft industry may find itself excluded from major new developments which could bring jobs and ensure the continuation of an important technological capability. The very future of civil aircraft manufacture in this country is at stake.
That is the stark reality behind the Tory Party's attitude—jobs; jobs in the West Country, jobs in the Home Counties, jobs in North Wales, jobs in Scotland. I repeat—jobs in Scotland. Lord Beswick, the Chairman of the Organising Committee, has had considerable discussion with the work force at all levels in Scottish Aviation. They expressed the strong view that they would like to maintain the separate identity of Scottish Aviation. Lord Beswick informs me that it is the Organising Committee's intention to maintain the separate identity of Scottish Aviation, with a high degree of local autonomy as a separate profit centre within British Aerospace.
We and the Organising Committee see a continuing future for aircraft work at Prestwick. The Scottish Aviation work force is skilled and flexible, and is well equipped to play a vigorous and distinctive role in British Aerospace. I hope that what I have said will be reassuring to those who work at Prestwick—for it was the workers who sought the inclusion of Scottish Aviation in the Bill.
We must have effective action to create a unified national industry. Only public ownership through this Bill can bring that about. Continued delay and uncertainty cause nothing but damage.
We are anxious that the issue be settled and to let the people of good will in the industry get on with the job. The leading figures in the shipbuilding industry plead to be allowed to get to work in a nationalised framework, too, and I suspect that the Tories know that. Leading figures in the industry have told me how they deplore the Tory opposition to the Bill. I am talking about

private owners—men who, I am certain, have made the same point to Opposition hon. Members who allow their own blind dogmatism to stand in the way of a planned future for shipbuilding.
I have repeatedly made clear that this industry is the most serious industrial problem facing the Government. The stark fact is that the problems of shipbuilding are now urgent. Time is not on our side. We must have a competitive shipbuilding industry in this country. Some 70,000 jobs in assisted areas depend on the industry. The world-wide order crisis is by now well known, and we cannot escape from it.
In the past 18 months or so our yards have taken orders for only 320,000 tons, or an average of about 230,000 tons a year, which is about 20 per cent. of our normal annual output. World orders for new ships in 1975 were under half those placed in 1974, and in the first half of this year they have been running at an even lower rate. The present world order rate is about 14 million gross tons per annum. It is estimated that by 1978 world shipbuilding capacity will amount to 50 million gross tons. More than half of that capacity is specially designed to build the large tankers which are no longer in demand. There have been recent signs that tanker facilities are being switched to production of other types of vessels on which our own industry depends.
What we are witnessing now is not a short-term cyclical recession it is far more serious than that. The Booz-Allen Report, commissioned by the Conservative Party when it made a gift to the industry of £50 million in construction grants under the Industry Act 1972, pointed out that our shipyards are less efficient than our overseas competitors. But no action was taken at that time.
What is the policy of the Opposition now? We do not even know—but perhaps we do know. The Opposition's policy is to let the industry go completely. Those who work in the industry will be interested in the Tories' tactics on the Bill.
On the other hand, our policy is clear. We are convinced that the essential improvements in productivity and in industrial relations can be obtained only through public ownership. We make no secret of that. On the radio this morning,


Colin Morrison, the deputy-editor of Marine Week, said:
Many of the life-long shipbuilders in the industry now see nationalisation as the only way their industry can have an overall national plan for the first time.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Does the Secretary of State agree that half of the shipyards in this country are already nationalised? Can he say whether the nationalised half has been more or less successful in obtaining new orders and becoming profitable?

Mr. Varley: If it were not for the nationalisation of some of the shipyards, they would have gone under a long time ago, and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor) knows that. Perhaps the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies) should take the hon. Member for Cathcart aside, because he will know the difficulty he had with Upper Clyde and the establishment of Govan as a nationalised shipyard. He knows that the only way to save those jobs was to take it into public ownership. We want a national strategy for the industry.

Mr. John Davies: I had no intention of speaking in the debate, but as the Secretary of State cites me I must recall that the requirements which were placed upon the Conservative Government existed because of the total dereliction of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders caused by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn). [Interruption.]

Mr. Varley: The name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) is always guaranteed to get a cheer. No one can dispute that the Conservative Government were in a different situation after Selsdon and their U-turn, and they came to the conclusion that that yard had to come under public ownership. We are convinced that the only way that we can achieve a national strategy is by public ownership. Public ownership will permit us for the first time to apply a coherent strategy instead of waiting for each successive crisis to be met with panic measures as they arise. That is the only way to avoid paying out Industry Act money to meet each crisis.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: The Secretary of State made an important point—that public ownership is the only vehicle by which an increase in productivity and an improvement in method can be made. There are significant examples of public ownership, but all the evidence suggests that there has been no improvement in productivity or methods in those industries.

Mr. Varley: There is evidence of improvements, for example, in Govan—the Tory nationalised shipyard. I am not saying that we are satisfied. I am not satisfied that the degree of productivity is as high as it should be, but that is not necessarily the fault of the workers. It has to do with many matters, including market techniques.
We are absolutely convinced that we must go ahead with the Bill and have a national strategy. It is more relevant than ever now that our shipbuilding industry faces the worst crisis for 40 years. The survival of the industry is now at stake. The outlook for shipbuilding on a world scale is gloomy and we are bound to be affected by that. As a major maritime nation, however, we must have a healthy and competitive shipbuilding industry. That is our objective, and it is all the more vital because shipbuilding provides essential employment in Scotland, the North-East and the North-West. That is why we want public ownership. Without it, there is little hope of applying an effective strategy.

Mr. Heseltine: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Mr. Varley: I have given way enough. Many hon. Members want to speak in the debate and it is best that I now get on.
We are convinced that public ownership is the only way. I have always made clear that nationalisation is not a soft option. I made it clear during the Second Reading debate on the Bill, when I used those very words. In that debate I said that we were facing a crisis and that it was a question of whether we could save the industry.
But that took place in the past. We must take the position very seriously now. I repeat the assurance that I have consistently given—that the Government intend to maintain a healthy, efficient shipbuilding industry. The Government


are not going to shrug their shoulders and allow the industry to disappear in order to say that they have upheld the principles of free competition. The tragedy of the delay to the Bill is that vesting day for the industry will inevitably be delayed, and British Shipbuilders will not be able to get on with the urgent planning that is desperately needed and which the previous Government totally failed to initiate. They simply handed out individual sums in response to short-term crises. We cannot wait until vesting day to set that work in hand.

Mr. Heseltine: The Secretary of State has given way several times. I am grateful to him for giving way to me. If he now says that the crisis is generally recognised and that management in the industry is looking forward to nationalisation, why is it necessary compulsorily to acquire the companies? Surely it could all be done voluntarily and quickly through the National Enterprise Board.

Mr. Varley: It cannot if we are to have the national strategy that we require. I remember a question similar to that of the hon. Gentleman's when we had the Second Reading, or some entirely similar point being made from the opposntion Front Bench. The only way is to have an organised structure for the industry under British Shipbuilders. The Organising Committee has made a good start. I dare say that the hon. Gentleman has taken steps to ask the Organising Committee exactly how it has gone about its work. I am starting a new phase this week with tripartite discussions with the trade unions and the Organising Committee in my Department. This is the next stage of the process of detailed consideration of the industry's problems, which has been going on for a long time. I do not want to conceal from them or from anyone else the fact that we shall have to have frank discussions and we shall have to make the situation and what is involved absolutely clear.
Comment has been made on the organisation of the industry and the work that has been done by the Organising Committee. I think that this was mentioned at great length in Committee. Unfortunately, I did not have the pleasure of taking part in the Committee's work. However, I should like to say something

about British Shipbuilders. It is not our intention to create in British Shipbuilders a monolithic, centralised body overriding the individual character of the shipbuilding areas of Britain. We are certain that nationalisation is now the only way of preserving the essential core of our shipbuilding industry over the difficult years ahead. The initial work and success of the Organising Committee for British Shipbuilders confirms us in the belief that only under public ownership shall we be able for the first time to apply an effective overall strategy to the problems of this industry.
An essential element of this strategy will be the need to maintain maximum practicable employment in certain parts of Britain, such as Scotland, the North-East and the North-West. The Government will not ignore the fact that whole communities are almost entirely dependent on shipbuilding and its ancillary industries. Indeed the Bill. as amended in Committee, now spells this out explicitly by laying a duty on the Secretary of State to give general directions to British Shipbuilders to take account of considerations related to regional areas and, in particular, employment considerations within those areas. The question is how to implement this strategy most effectively.
To take one example, under successive Governments Scottish shipyards have benefited from a high proportion of the special assistance given to British yards—some £100 million out of some £190 million in the last 10 years. In spite of this, the problems are still great. The only way forward now is this new approach through British Shipbuilders. Many Scottish yards in the private sector badly need modernisation.

Miss Harvie Anderson: Concerning the history of the Scottish yards, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is a fact that when one outstandingly successful yard was amalgamated with others, it, too, was dragged down? There may be a very good reason for allowing nationalisation to take place where necessary, perhaps, and in some form, but not over the whole industry, as is suggested.

Mr. Varley: The right hon. Lady is referring to Yarrow's. It is not true to say that Yarrow's has not received Government assistance. Yarrow's has


received Government assistance. It is my considered view that if we are to make effective use of all resources, Yarrow's will have to be included, as stated in the Bill, within the framework of the shipbuilding industry.
Some companies have significantly failed to take advantage of opportunities to modernise and use the assistance under the Shipbuilding Industry Act 1967 or the Industry Act 1972. For these yards, under public ownership—as they will be; it is their last hope—British Shipbuilders, in developing its corporate plans with the funds available to it, will provide the modern equipment that is so badly needed for them to be competitive.

Mr. Norman Tebbit: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not wish to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman—[HON. MEMBERS: "Sit down then."]—in his Fourth Reading speech on the Bill, but I am puzzled as to which of the motions on the Order Paper he is speaking to. It might be for the convenience of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if you would consider ruling now, in order to avoid the possibility of other hon. Members straying out of order, as to the nature of this debate. [Interruption.] If I may continue to have your ear, Mr. Deputy Speaker, without the junior Minister interjecting into the argument from a sedentary position, perhaps I may put it to you that there is nothing in the motions as printed on the Order Paper concerning the merits of the Bill. The merits of the Bill have been discussed at great length in the House on numerous occasions.
The subjects for debate are, first, the motion concerning the casting of Mr. Speaker's vote in the event of an equality of votes in the Division, and, secondly,
That the Order for consideration of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill … be discharged, and that the Bill be re-committed to a Select Committee.
That cannot really have anything to do with the merits of the Bill, which have been discussed on Second Reading. Perhaps you will be kind enough to offer some guidance on the matter.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The guidance that I can give to the hon. Gentleman is, first, that it was agreed that both motions should be taken together. I

think that it is essentially in order, to debate the principles which are involved, that some detail should be employed by all hon. Members who speak in the debate on the wider aspects.

Mr. Tebbit: Of course some detail should be deployed, but what should be deployed is detail about the matter on the Order Paper and not detail about matters which have been discussed previously, if not ad nauseam at least at considerable length, both in the House and in Committee.

Mr. Deputy Spaeker: I think that the Secretary of State must be allowed to develop his argument in his own way.

Mr. Varley: It is very typical of the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit), when we are debating serious issues, to raise a petty procedural point.
We are talking about the serious position in Scotland. Does anyone seriously believe that all the yards in Scotland would survive in private ownership? Of course they would not. Most would go under. Some £300 million is being made available to British Shipbuilders under Clause 11 of the Bill. That is a substantial sum of money, and, of course, it does not include regional assistance. That would be additional. But new investment on its own is not enough. It must be accompanied by a fundamental improvement in productivity, marketing, financial control and industrial relations, which British Shipbuilders is determined to achieve while at the same time avoiding unnecessary centralisation.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that it was the Government's aim to retain the essential core of the shipbuilding industry and to obtain the maximum practicable employment in Scotland and in other regions. Is this aim in line with the OECD recommendation that capacity be reduced by between 30 per cent. and 50 per cent. in the member countries of the OECD? Do the Government accept that policy? If they do not accept such a policy, will the Secretary of State give some form of affirmation that there wil be no yard closures or redundancies in Scotland, in view of the replies given to certain Questions yesterday?

Mr. Varley: On the question of the OECD, the hon. Gentleman recognises, quite properly, that this is an international problem. In this country we shall do what we think right for British Shipbuilders and British shipbuilding. We want to preserve jobs. That is how we shall approach the matter.
The assistance which has already been given to the British shipbuilding industry in Scotland is well known. We are determined to maintain assistance to shipbuilding in Scotland because we know how important that is. Nobody can give an absolute guarantee. If the hon. Gentleman were in this position, he could not give an absolute guarantee that every job will be preserved. But we want to ensure that we have a credible shipbuilding industry in this country. That is what we are setting out to do under the terms of the Bill.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Would the right hon. Gentleman care to give a guarantee about yards?

Mr. Varley: The hon. Gentleman knows quite well that we cannot give a specific guarantee about yards. I would be very foolish to say that every specific yard throughout the whole of the United Kingdom will be maintained. I would not say that, because at the end of the day we have to make sure that the industry has a coherent strategy. But, on the basis of what we have heard this afternoon, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that if the Conservative Party was in power there would be very little future for shipbuilding in Scotland.
The problems facing these two industries are too serious to admit further delay. I urge the House to vote against both motions, because they are wrecking motions. These industries need a chance to win their future. It is only by allowing the Bill to proceed that these industries will get a chance.

5.42 p.m.

Sir Derek Walker-Smith: At the beginning of his speech the Secretary of State said that he hoped this debate would take place on a more even keel than the previous one. It was an agreeable use of nautical metaphor, to which, I suppose, his present preoccupations have addicted him. If I may make a very slight expansion of the nautical

metaphor, it certainly was not long before he got into deep water, and he has floundered fairly consistently in it ever since.
We are told that this debate is intended to be what lawyers call a rehearing. It is not, I hope, what in theatrical circles is called a revival. We do not want to have precisely the same debate again. It follows what the Prime Minister, with understandable delicacy, referred to as a misunderstanding about pairing and voting.
I am not concerned with the nature of that misunderstanding. Let me suggest—I hope with equal delicacy—that the misunderstanding was fortunate for the Government and resulted in their advantage. If there had been no misunderstanding—if some sudden and unexplained point of intellectual doubt or ratiocinative incomprehension had not invaded the minds of the Government Whips, we know not which—the Government's motion to suspend Standing Orders and to deny the proper processes of a Hybrid Bill would have been defeated on Mr. Speaker's casting vote.
In that case, the decision would have followed the balance of the argument. For there can be no doubt that on the merits of the case, as against the mechanics of the Division Lobby, on an objective assessment of the argument the Opposition's case—in that instance a case supported by all elements of the Opposition, united in intellectual conviction and defence of principle—was clearly made out.
Against that background, I should like shortly to refer to two matters today. First, I should like to give some analysis of the Government's case as then presented, to see whether such analysis confirms or calls for modification of my submission that the Government's case was not made out. Secondly, I should like to give some analysis of the matters emerging, the representations made, and the arguments presented since the debate of 27th May.
On the first of those matters, the interval of time has allowed a closer analysis to be made of the speech of the Secretary of State in opening the Government's case on the last occasion. His speech then was like Caesar's Gaul, divided into three parts, though not, I


fear, with the precision of that great man. I shall comment briefly, if I may, on them all.
First, the right hon. Gentleman said that the matter had been raised only after the Second Reading of the Bill and after 58 sittings of the Committee and, therefore, could not properly be raised. He suggested that in some curious way the matter had become time-barred or subject to limitation. He seemed to suggest that some onus rested on the Opposition to raise the matter at an early date and that, if such onus were not discharged, by some equally curious application of the principle of estoppel it could not be raised now.
I challenged the right hon. Gentleman directly on that point in the course of his speech. He was kind enough to allow me to intervene. I asked him:
Does he accept that the onus is on the Government to establish to the satisfaction of Mr. Speaker the facts of the case for him to be able to arrive at a correct judgment about hybridity, or does he assert that there is some duty on the Opposition to establish the exact state of the Bill? Does he accept that the onus on the Government is not reduced or discharged by what happened in the Standing Committee?
The right hon. Gentleman replied:
I shall have something more to say about that point".

Mr. Varley: That was a very selective quotation, because I had something to say immediately on that point. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has quoted—perhaps not deliberately—out of context. I said:
All I am saying is that the Bill was submitted on two occasions, in the formal processes, to the authorities of the House, and was cleared as a Bill which was not a hybrid Bill. That is all I am saying. It is not that your Department, Mr. Speaker, is in commission to any Department of State."—[Official Report, 27th May 1976; Vol. 912, c. 634.]
I stand by that.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: There is not really any great virtue in standing by replies that are irrelevant and do not answer the point made. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman said a great deal in that speech. Nobody doubts that for a moment. What I am saying is that he did not reply to the point specifically raised. But, of course, he could not reply

to it, because the fact is that there is no such onus on the Opposition. It is the duty of Ministers to present the facts at the proper time to enable Mr. Speaker to make a correct appraisal. If they fail in that duty—which they did—the matter remains open for a correct interpretation if and when, as is obviously desirable, the failure of the Ministers is made good.
The second section of the right hon. Gentleman's speech was devoted to a fascinating dissertation on the question, "When is a ship not a ship?" I make two brief comments on this. First, I refer to the naivety, with great respect, of the right hon. Gentleman's presentation. He tried to construe the matter by reference to a definition in another statute, with which this Bill is not expressed to be read as one, whereas the question is clearly to be determined by the wording of the Bill itself, since the Bill contains a definition specifically introduced for this particular purpose.
The House will recall the dramatic moment in the right hon. Gentleman's speech when he triumphantly produced his trump card. It was rather like an inferior imitation of Mr. Gladstone producing the ace of trumps from his sleeve, though lacking the boldness of Mr. Gladstone in actually claiming that the Almighty had put it there. His sleight of hand lacked Mr. Gladstone's skill, and the right hon. Gentleman's trump card—the dubious and selective introduction of his single photograph—conspicuously failed to win him the trick.
The right hon. Gentleman's photograph showed the drilling legs of the ship ashore, when it does not look like a ship, but he produced no corresponding photograph to show the ship afloat on the water, when clearly it looks like a ship. In fact the right hon. Gentleman could have saved himself all this illogicality, because that part of his speech was irrelevant. Time and again Mr. Speaker had to intervene to point out that the debate could not be concerned with the question whether or not this was a ship, since that would have called in question his ruling. For example, Mr. Speaker said:
I must say this, and I hope that it will be hearkened to: anything that seeks to discuss the merits of whether the ship was a ship


is a challenge to what I said yesterday."—[Official Report, 27th May 1976; Vol. 912. c. 646.]
The third and last section of the speech was devoted to observations about the precarious and difficult position of the aircraft and shipbuilding industries, followed by a general and unsubstantiated—indeed, improbable—affirmation that the position would be improve by nationalisation. This section of the right hon. Gentleman's speech has been reinforced today by further large doses of similar inspissated gloom. At best, that part of his speech, then and again today, was a striking example of the false syllogism—something must be done, this is something, therefore let us do it.
It is worse than that. Even on the extravagant assumption, made in spite of every experience and economic fact, that nationalisation is a good thing, to deprive the citizen of his undoubted rights in pursuit of a proclaimed and allegedly beneficent Government action is to adopt the principle that the end justifies the means—the very doctrine on which, throughout history, autocratic régimes have sought to justify their violation of fundamental and human rights.

Mr. Heffer: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. As usual, he is courteous in the House, unlike some of his right hon. Friends. Is it not clear that, at the time, Ministers went out of their way to ensure that the Bill was drafted in such a way that there would be no question of hybridity, and that this was not done to deceive anyone but to ensure that there could not be hybridity? Hybridity arose afterwards, because of a technicality. I have listened carefully to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and he has made a first-class lawyer's case, but I come back to the point that those who work in the shipyards are fully aware that an oil rig is an oil rig and a ship is a ship, despite the technicalities. Anyone can be mislead on that basis, and we are arguing about a technicality.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. He was a Minister at the time, and I certainly do not impugn his good fath. I do not impugn anyone's good faith. All I am saying is that we must accept the natural consequences of the act. A Bill which is prima facie hybrid has been introduced

under wrong procedures, and it is our duty to set matters aright as best we can. We must concentrate on that aspect. We cannot justify taking wrong procedures involving a denial of rights to the citizen by praying in aid good intentions.
I come to the second main aspect to which I referred, the developments since the original hearing—the debate of 27th May—and the questionable decision that followed it. On the positive side, in the interval no fewer than 19 petitions have been lodged in due form and await hearing. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) will correct me later if I am wrong. That disposes of any contention that there are not citizens—ordinary citizens—aggrieved by the content, or some of the content, of the Hybrid Bill. It shows beyond peradventure that there are matters requiring examination and issues awaiting trial. To the benefit of these procedures the citizen is entitled. If the Government are right in their contention, they have nothing to fear. Their unseemly anxiety to stifle these processes puts in doubt both their confidence in their own case and their regard for the rule of law.
Action by the Government in the interval has been mainly by way of effort to show that their suppression of the Standing Orders and the rights conferred thereby was not the shabby unconstitutional measure which, ex facie, it appears to be. They sought to discharge that difficult task by suggesting that Standing Order No. 38 applies only to proceedings before Second Reading and, therefore, does not apply to this situation.
So desperate was the Government's intellectual plight that the "old guard" was called up and committed to the fray. The great man himself, the Leader of the House, reverted to his ancient trade and contributed a long and polemical letter to The Times.
The argument amounts, in substance, to this: that where the Speaker has not, prior to Second Reading, been in a position to make a correct prima facie ruling because Ministers have failed sufficiently to inform him of the relevant facts, and those facts are subsequently brought to light by the commendable conscientiousness of others—in this case of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton—it was


said by the right hon. Gentleman that the Standing Orders cannot operate and, thus, a Bill, which on a correct understanding of the facts was undoubtedly prima facie hybrid on presentation last November, changes its nature and must now be regarded as something that it is not—an ordinary Public Bill.
I dealt—or sought to deal—with this argument in extenso in a letter to The Times of 5th June, when I charitably classified the right hon. Gentleman's position as ingenious but incorrect. If there had been substance in the right hon. Gentleman's point, and if my dissection of it had been open to doubt or challenge, we can be certain that among that intellectual coterie of readers and potential contributors to the correspondence columns of The Times some would have hastened into print to say so. Did they? No, not a squeak, not a squawk, not a chirrup, not a plaintive note.
The conclusion is clear. The last argument dredged up by the Government to support their shabby manoeuvre—the argument that the Standing Orders cannot or should not be applied, because it is too late—crumbles into dust with the rest.
I refer to one further matter—the changed composition of the House. When today's business was announced last Thursday, a comment was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party—and the respect which we habitually have for his utterances is reinforced at present with the premonition of nostalgic regret at his quitting his great position. He pointed out with that acuteness of observation common to the Parliamentary Liberal Party—at any rate on this matter—that there will be—
one major alteration, in that there will be a new Member in the House,"—[Official Report, 24th June 1976; Vol. 913, c. 1824.]
[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon. Members are as quick as ever to take a point. They realise that I am referring to the recent Rotherham by-election, the result of which can only have brought cold comfort to the Prime Minister.
Curiously enough, Rotherham was the occasion of another famous by-election in the 1920s, which also brought cold comfort at the time. Mr. Baldwin was Prime Minister, and when he was told

the bad news of the loss of that critical by-election at Rotherham lie observed "Rotherham. I have been there only once. In the railway station there I had occasion to visit the conveniences and found that the seats were of a rather idiosyncratic square shape." Somebody had written graffiti on the walls which said:
They must have rum bums in Rotherham if these strange seats don't bother 'em.
I do not know whether the present Prime Minister can emulate Mr. Baldwin's admirable sang-froid at this striking evidence of the erosion of public confidence in his Administration. But I warn him that the previous Rotherham by-election was a prelude to the defeat of the Government at the ensuing General Election. No doubt history will repeat itself in that respect.
At the moment, I am more concerned with the voting intentions of the new hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Crowther) than with the future implications for a General Election. I have not had the pleasure of making his acquaintance, and I know only what the newspapers tell me. They say, first of all, that he is well known and very well liked in Rotherham. That is wholly gratifying and to his credit. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is a pity he did not get more votes."] That is as may be. The newspapers also tell us that the hon. Member has extreme Left-wing views. Naturally, I regret this. Neverthelesss, as I was fortunate enough to enjoy the personal friendship of Aneurin Bevan for 30 years and was agreeably acquainted with Jimmy Maxton, I do not expect that this circumstance, of itself, will be a bar to a friendly personal relationship.
Thirdly, the newspapers say that the hon. Member promised in his election campaign that he would not behave like Lobby fodder once in this House. That is promising. What better and speedier opportunity to make good this undertaking than by showing this evening, at the outset of his parliamentary career, that he will honour it by refusing to be treated like Lobby fodder, dragooned by the Party Whips into a course of action which is repellent to conscience, and judgment alike?
The cynics in the media assume that the hon. Member's vote can be predetermined and counted in terms of


Lobby fodder. What an opportunity to prove them wrong and to prove wrong also all those cynics who allege that the status and standards of politicians and public men have fallen. By voting in the Opposition Lobby tonight in defence of political probity and the rights of citizens, the hon. Gentleman will have a chance to do more for the high standing of this House than perhaps in the rest of his parliamentary career. I congratulate him on his opportunity, and I have no doubt he will seize it eagerly.
The hon. Member for Rotherham also could do something to restore the fallen reputation of the Leader of the House by helping to deny him the fruits of his wrongful acts. The right hon. Gentleman and the Prime Minister, particularly, have made some show of sorrow about the facts that attended the purported decision of the House on 27th May. But if they persist with the error of trying to suppress Standing Orders and the procedures for Hybrid Bills, they arouse suspicion that they are not sorry for what they have done; they are sorry only because they were found out and they did not get away with it. Genuine repentance we are told by the highest authority, is coupled with the duty of total restitution—by putting those one has wronged back in the position in which they were in before one wronged them. In this case, it means giving to the petitioners the rights that have always properly belonged to them.
If Ministers persist with their assault on the rule of law to the end, criticisms and castigations of their conduct must be repeated and reinforced. Unfortunately, the Leader of the House bears a special responsibility. He must do so, by reason both of his high office and of the way in which he has personally associated himself with this matter. Of him one must speak in sorrow rather than in anger. So much could have been hoped for from him as the Leader of the House from one bearing the reputation of a champion of freedom and a devotee of parliamentary practice. Sadly, the outcome has confounded the expectation, and promise has been denied its fulfilment. Here I recall an ancient precedent—

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): Before the right hon.

and learned Gentleman recalls his ancient analogy may I point out that he said earlier that when I wrote a letter to The Times I did not receive any support—"not one squeak or squawk"; I think those were his words. Somehow, he must have missed the letter from the eminent parliamentary draftsman, who said that, while he held no brief for me, he considered everything in my letter to be justified.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Uncharacteristically, the right hon. Gentleman has misdirected himself. I said that there was no correction to my letter. [Interruption.] Of course I did. The right hon. Gentleman is slow today; it must be the hot weather, the long nights or his arguments with his hon. Friends behind him. His letter was published before my letter. His letter was published on Friday and mine on Saturday, and there was no refutation of any kind at any date on any points made in my letter. Never mind; the right hon. Gentleman has some time this afternoon, and he has had three weeks to think about it. Perhaps he has had some better thoughts about it than he had before.
Let me proceed to my conclusion. I shall not deny the right hon. Gentleman, who is an ardent classicist, the benefits of the ancient precedent that I was about to quote. When Servius Galba followed success as a general with failure as an emperor, Tacitus wrote his memorable epitaph:
Omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset
which I will translate with appropriate apologies to the shades of Tacitus:
Everybody would have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would make a good Leader of the House if in fact he had never been Leader of the House.
Having listened, as we have in the past, to his eloquent exhortations on the themes of parliamentary propriety and respect for human rights, we have sadly to ask ourselves the question: "He has persuaded others; how comes it that he has not persuaded himself?"
We on the Opposition side of the House remain true to our convictions about the enduring importance of these great principles and responsibilites. We believe that the rights of these citizens to petition should be safeguarded, and that the rule of law should be maintained.
Only last week the President of France paid a tribute in fitting language to the contribution of our Parliament to the workings of parliamentary democracy and a free society. I ask the House, by its action tonight, to show itself worthy of that tribute. I ask the House, by its vote, to defend those great principles of the rule of law and the rights of the citizen for which our Parliament has traditionally stood and should stand today.

6.9 p.m.

Mr. David Lambie: I make no apology for intervening briefly in this debate tonight. Neither do I apologise for not following the procedural arguments put forward by the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) and by the Tory spokesman at the beginning of the debate.
I was a member of the Standing Committee which dealt with the Bill for nationalising the shipbuilding and aircraft industry. I took part in most of the 58 sittings in Committee on that Bill. Therefore, I say that the sooner we can get the Bill through the Commons and enacted the better it will be for Parliament and for the workers in these industries.
I take part in the debate because many of the 2,000 workers at Scottish Aviation at Prestwick—a firm which is to be nationalised under the Bill—are my constituents. My main reason for speaking tonight, however, is my interest in the thousands of shipbuilding jobs, as well as those of the Scottish Aviation workers, which have been put at risk by the Tory tactics in delaying the Bill.
At the time of our last debate on this subject Scottish Members of Parliament, in particular, received many telegrams from those concerned with these industries. The telegrams were sent by the STUC and from mass meetings of shipbuilding and aircraft workers. There was a telegram from the shop stewards' action committee at Prestwick, telling us not to support the Tory Opposition but to give the Government full support in the best interests of the working people of Scotland, especially the West of Scotland.
That debate witnessed an unprecedented discourtesy by one of the SNP

Members—I regret that neither that hon. Member nor any of the SNP Members is interested enough in the subject to attend the debate tonight. The Member concerned was the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt), who tore up telegrams from those representing workers in the shipbuilding and aircraft industries. In addition, the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing), who is not present tonight—perhaps she is in Europe—said that the telegrams were bogus, even though they were from representatives of people working in the two industries. I am pleased to see that the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) has now come in.
I hope that tonight the SNP Members will either abstain or vote in support of the Government. If they persist with their previous policies the Bill may be defeated. I hope that Mrs. Margo Mac-Donald, who is Vice-Chairman of the SNP and who tells us that her party is a Socialist party, has sent telegrams to the 11 SNP Members telling them to support the Labour Government.
Scottish Aviation is a small firm, which represents roughly 5 per cent. of the total aerospace industry. During the last 18 months the work force has been run down from 2,500 to its present figure of 1,700, a fall of more than 30 per cent. The future of that work force depends on the Bill's becoming law. If the rundown continues, Scottish Aviation will soon not be a viable proposition. That is why it is vitally important for us to get the Bill through tonight.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Which party has been in Government during the period of that rundown? Will the hon. Member say how much Government work has been steered by the Government to Scottish Aviation to sustain that work force in the way that the hon. Member has been requesting?

Mr. Lambie: The Labour Government have been in power for the last 18 months and they have tried their best to direct work to Prestwick. The management and workers at Prestwick asked that eight Jetstreams should be handed back to Prestwick by the RAF for refurbishing. Unfortunately the company has not taken up the offer. If it had been taken up the work force would have


been increasing, not decreasing. Therefore, if the hon. Member for Dundee East wants to criticise someone about the present position of Scottish Aviation he should turn his attention to the management there, not to the Government and the workers. To be fair, I do not criticise the management. It would have taken the aeroplanes back, but Scottish Aviation is neither an independent company nor even a Scottish company; it is an integral part of the Laird Group, which is the financial holding company, based in London. It is surprising to me that Scottish MPs representing Scottish industries should think that Scottish Aviation would be more secure under London control than as an integral part of British Aerospace.
The statement today by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about the future of the company and the activities of the Government and Lord Beswick carries for Scottish Aviation the assurance that it will have an autonomous position within British Aerospace, which is something that the Scottish Aviation workers and management have been demanding over the last six months. That statement will be welcomed in Scotland, and I hope that it will be supported by the SNP in the Lobby tonight.

Mr. Robert Adley: Was the hon. Member present at Question Time yesterday? If he was, did he hear the Minister of State, Department of Industry, admit that the Government have, and have had for many years, as much power as they could want to fund research, development and production of new aircraft, including for example, the production of Concorde in 1962? What new powers does he think the Bill will give the Government to fund new aircraft? What evidence does he have, for his constituents who work at Scottish Aviation, that the attitude of his party towards aircraft production—epitomised by the TSR2—has in any way changed?

Mr. Lambie: That has nothing to do with the point that I was making. I was saying that we have been trying, by various means at present open to us, to get help for Prestwick, but we have been unsuccessful. We shall be successful as an integral and autonomous part of British Aerospace. That is the assurance that we have had today from my right hon. Friend.
If the Government lose the vote tonight the jobs of thousands of shipyard workers and of the 2,000 workers at Scottish Aviation will be at stake. I hope that the minority opposition parties will remember that they are here not to make political capital out of a situation but to represent the interests of the people of Scotland, especially the industrial workers.
At the end of the last debate the Government had a majority of one. But for that one vote we could have been faced with a General Election. The present climate of opinion in Britain, as demonstrated by the Rotherham by-election, shows that a Conservative Government would be returned with a massive majority. What would that mean for the shipbuilding and aircraft workers in Scotland? It would mean poverty, starvation and closures. I suggest to the hon. Member for Dundee, East that a Conservative Government would kill the devolution Bill which is to be presented by this Government, and that there would be no chance of getting a directly-elected legislative assembly for Scotland.
Do the SNP want that? Do they want nothing but closures among the shipyards and aircraft factories in Scotland? Do they want a constitutional crisis? Perhaps they want a revolutionary situation in which they could gain complete independence for Scotland? If they support the Opposition again tonight, they will be voting for all those consequences.
I am speaking on behalf of the shipbuilding workers in Scotland. I shall support the Government, and I hope we get a majority, because the industrial future of the west of Scotland depends on it.

6.21 p.m.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie) has just announced in the most resounding way that defeat for the Government tonight would be heartily endorsed by the country as a whole. That might strike home rather harder than the hon. Member intended. It is the opinion of my colleagues and myself that, in view of the Government's standing in public opinion, this measure should never have been brought before the House at all.
Very little has changed since our original debate on 27th May except for the filling of a lamented parliamentary vacancy, but reference has already been made to the recent correspondence columns of The Times and, since our original debate, there has been time for deeper reflection on the involved question of hybridity. My hon. Friends and I think that hybridity in a Bill to nationalise manufacturing industry is no sudden hazard or abnormal risk, but is inherent in measures dealing with complex modern industries.
Perhaps most of us are too facile in talking about, for instance, the textile industry, the construction industry or the electronic communications industry. When we get down to the substance of industries, it is almost impossible to categorise the firms which engage in them to a greater or lesser extent. If the country is subjected to the misfortune of further nationalisation Bills for manufacturing industry, it will be almost impossible to avoid hybridity. I am the last to underrate the importance of this measure, but we are considering not only a case which is extremely important in its own right, but a situation which might recur on future occasions. We ought to learn one or two lessons.
It has been clearly and rightly established that the responsibility for producing all the facts necessary so that judgments can be formed about hybridity rests entirely with those bringing in a Bill. Observations made in a rather glib way at the end of last month and in recent discussions that it was up to the Opposition to challenge the possible hybridity of a Bill are beside the point. We are all immensely obliged to the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) for his industry and skill in detecting the prima facie hybridity in this Bill, but that was a case of supererogation on his part and was not the responsibility of the Opposition. Responsibility for not having provided all the facts, however pardonable the mistake may have been, rests with the Government.
It ill becomes the Government to say that because they did not advise Mr. Speaker properly at the time, but let the matter go by for many months, they should now be let off. That is a most dangerous argument, which will not dis-

courage either the making of mistakes, or easy judgments, or failure to go to the roots of the matter and investigate all possible firms which should be embraced within a Bill. It would be a charter for easy living in Government Departments, particularly those that construct Bills of nationalisation for manufacturing industry. We ought not, by our votes, to make life easier for those carrying such heavy responsibilities.
We are not dealing with a Bill to nationalise a self-contained, obvious, almost self-described category such as coal, gas, electricity or the railways. Those Bills had an easy passage technically because the risk of hybridity was, due to their nature, manifestly so small. For the first time, we are now venturing into genuine nuts and bolts manufacturing industry.
It is important that the House should pause to consider whether it is not in danger of setting an unfortunate precedent by treating hybridity far too lightly and depriving individual citizens, who are always important, and also depriving bodies of enormous economic and industrial importance to the welfare of great regions of the country, of their rights of petition. This matter is not only important because of the many thousands of people who will be caught up in the Bill's provisions and because of the right of petition against a particular Bill, but also because it is something which may, if politics takes a certain course which I would find regrettable, come before the House many times again.
The Liberal Party will vote against the Government tonight with even more confidence than at the end of May.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The debate is intended by both sides of the House to be, as near as may be, a replay or repetition of the debate on 27th May. It is because the second of the two motions before the House is designed as nearly as possible to reproduce the substance of the second Division which took place on that date that my colleagues and I, seeing no reason to change the mind we were then of, will be supporting the Opposition on the second motion.
However, being put in a classical mood by the speech with which the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire,


East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) entertained the House earlier, I am reminded of the saying of the philosopher Heraclitus:
No man goes down into the same river twice".
Nor it is possible ever to have exactly the same debate again. The very moment the Tellers have reported at the Table, it would be impossible to repeat exactly the same debate or to reproduce precisely the same circumstances; but after the lapse of a whole month there have been a number of alterations. It is therefore vain for us to suppose, as it is for the official Opposition, that by any contrivance they can artificially recreate exactly the circumstances of the debate and Division of 27th May.
For example, there have been certain changes of personnel in the House itself. I was a little anxious when I listened to the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East addressing himself, I think in the hon. Gentleman's absence, to the new representative of the Rotherham constituency. Indeed, I looked at the Order Paper to make sure that there was not a third motion by the Leader of the Opposition and other right hon. Members on the Opposition Front Bench, ordering the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Crowther), in order as near as possible to reproduce the circumstances of 27th May, to refrain from voting.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: So he should.

Mr. Powell: That takes one into deep speculation. Fortunately, it is speculation upon which none of the motions on the Order Paper obliges us to enter.
However, from somewhat lightheartedly contemplating this change that has occurred since 27th May, our attention is directed to another alteration that the Opposition are inviting the House to endeavour, by passing a certain motion, to reverse and put back in statu quo ante divisionem—

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Sir D. Walker-Smith rose—

Mr. Powell: I am well aware of the difficult ground on which I may have ventured by that last Latin vocable that I used.
It is well understood that the consequence of the traditional rule, the prescription of precedent, by which you are fortunately and properly bound, Mr. Speaker, in exercising your casting vote,

would have obliged you to vote against the Government on the second Division on 27th May, whereas by virtue of the very fact that that Division is now in the past, your situation tonight as regards the second vote would be the opposite: precedent would similarly constrain you to vote with the Government. So the Opposition say: "We shall therefore invite the House to pass a motion—only for tonight, of course—which will put things back in that respect as they were on 27th May."
Already there is a considerable intellectual difficulty there. If we are to attempt by passing resolutions to reproduce the situation on 27th May, then in all fairness and justice we must reproduce it in all respects; and that we recognise our inability to do. However, so far as you are concerned, Mr. Speaker, the Opposition say that artificially we should re-create your situation when approaching the second Division on 27th May.
I believe that in placing the motion on the Order Paper the Opposition are inviting the House to do something that it should not do. I do not believe that, even if the action were justifiable in the narrowest possible context, we can claim that in passing such a motion we are not creating a precedent, or that in no conceivable future situation could such a motion, if passed tonight, not be prayed in aid and held either to alter the precedents which you are at present obliged to follow, Mr. Speaker, or at any rate to justify or even necessitate the passing of a similar motion. In fact, it is a precedent that we are creating, a major intervention in the relations of the Chair with the House upon which we are entering, if we pass the motion which is on the Order Paper.
If it were considered right that the precedents by which you are bound, Mr. Speaker, should no longer be binding, I believe that the House should not attempt to interfere in the matter by a simple motion in a single case. The precedents and their effect upon the relations of the Chair with the House are so serious and important a matter that it is an alteration upon which the House should not enter without its usual procedures for due consideration and advice from its own Members, as far removed as possible from the necessities of any particular situation.
So I say that this is a motion which the House should not pass, because it attempts to alter binding precedent in the wrong way, even if that it what it is desired to do. But then I do not believe that this is a precedent which we should seek to alter either in a particular case or generally; for I do not believe we can find any more satisfactory foundation for the action of the Chair in the case of equality of votes than that which has commended itself and been followed over a considerable number of years—I believe something between one and two centuries. What we should certainly not do is to make such an alteration when it gives an important advantage to one party or the other, when even an important political event may hang upon the outcome.

Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: Will the right hon. Gentleman address his mind to the first consideration that the 19th edition of "Erskine May" gives at page 403 to Mr. Speaker in casting a casting vote—namely, that Mr. Speaker should always vote for further discussion where that is possible? Could that not apply here, I ask the right hon. Gentleman? If he votes with the Noes in a tie on the second motion, the petitions and the effect of them will never be determined by the House again. If he votes with the Ayes, the House will have an opportunity of deciding on Report whether it should embody permanently in the Bill the recommendation of the Select Committee, thereby giving the House a further opportunity for decision.

Mr. Powell: The hon. Gentleman appears to be asking me to divert my attention from the motion on the Order Paper, which is a binding instruction to Mr. Speaker, to a quite different proposition, namely, the expression of an opinion as to how Mr. Speaker on his personal responsibility should interpret the precedents by which he is bound. No doubt Mr. Speaker has heard what the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) has said: and, provided we do it respectfully enough, there is no reason for any of us not to express an opinion upon the problem which he confronts in applying the precedents. That, however, is not the motion before the House. The

effect of the motion is to remove the precedents from Mr. Speaker's consideration and to impose an order upon him instead.
I want to adduce an analogy, which is not far-fetched, in regard to what we would be doing if we were to bind the Chair in this matter—in other words, if we were to bind the Chair as against precedent on an occasion where the political importance and practical effects are so serious.
At present in a number of Standing Committees of this House the Government are liable to find themselves dependent on the casting vote of the Chair at the time, which casting vote by precedent is cast on the same principles as those by which Mr. Speaker is guided in his decisions when the Mace is on the Table in this Chamber. If we pass this motion tonight, what is the protection against a party which has the majority in this House arguing that it is only right and proper for the will of the House not to be frustrated in Standing Committee by the Chair following precedent in the case of equality of votes but for a motion to be passed that in such cases the Chair shall vote with the Government—or however the case may be?
If we pass this motion, we shall enter on a course that will not stop with tonight. It is a course that removes one of the ultimate sources of independence in this Chamber. It lays hands on one of the elements in this Chamber which we all, by common consent, keep free from the power of the majority, for if this motion is passed it will be a majority of this House directing you, Mr. Speaker, what you are to do.
The minority parties in this House, indeed the parties which are in a permanent minority in this House—I hope that the Liberal Party will not take that too seriously—are most particularly interested in a motion of that kind not passing. That is the reason why my hon. Friends and I tonight will join what we hope will be the majority in rejecting the former of the two motions.

Mr. Bryan Gould: I have two main reasons for wishing to speak in this debate. First, many of my constituents who work in the shipbuilding and ship repair industries will be


vitally affected by the outcome of this debate. Secondly, I was a member of the now famous, or perhaps notorious, Standing Committee which took a record 58 sittings to consider the Bill.
In regard to the second motion—and I am content to leave the first motion because it has been more than adequately dealt with by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell)—there are two touchstones. They are comprised in your rulings, Mr. Speaker, on the two points of order raised by the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop). Your first ruling was that, by virtue of the fact that an oil rig being built by Marathon at the relevant date fell within the definition of "ship", the Bill was prima facie hybrid.
That ruling cannot be challenged, and there is no disposition to do so. That was your ruling, and it is undoubtedly correct, but there are a number of features of the ruling to which I should like to draw attention. Your ruling specified that the Bill was prima facie hybrid Your ruling had to take that form because the only provision made in the Standing Orders or elsewhere for a conclusive determination of hybridity is for an occasion when a Bill is referred to the examiners and when they so report.
Secondly, Mr. Speaker, the situation in which you gave that ruling was unprecedented, as you acknowledged. Indeed it was more than that: if was unforeseen. If one looks at "Erskine May", Standing Orders, and the Select Committee on Hybrid Bills, one sees that they all discuss the subject of hybridity on the assumption that the question will be raised before Second Reading. No provision has been made anywhere for the situation with which we are confronted.
The third point that follows as a consequence from the second is that you expressly limited your ruling, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that the Bill was prima facie hybrid. You made no ruling or recommendation as to what should happen then. You made no ruling about referring the Bill to the examiners, still less to a Select Committee. You specifically said that the House was master of its own procedures and that it was for the House to decide what it should do. The conclusion to be drawn from your first ruling is that while almost certainly

the Bill would have been decided to have been hybrid if it had been referred to the examiners, since it had not been referred to the examiners we were confronted with an unprecedented situation to which no answers could be found in the Standing Orders. That conclusion is reinforced by a simple examination of the Standing Orders, and in particular by looking at Standing Order 38. That Standing Order presupposes that the whole question of hybridity will be raised before Second Reading. Therefore, there is no help to be gained there.
Your second ruling dealt with the possibility that if the Standing Orders were of no assistance, the Report of the Select Committee on Hybrid Bills and resolutions of the House to adapt recommendations of that Committee might help in some respect. Your ruling was to the effect that there was no help to be sought there since the Select Committee was concerned exclusively with the situation that would arise once the Examiners had reported the Bill to be hybrid.
Therefore, we face a situation that is quite unprecedented and unforeseen and in relation to which nothing in the Standing Orders, or in any resolution of the House, or anywhere else, can provide us with an easy and foreseeable answer to the problem. What therefore is to be done?
The House, in my view, has two choices presented to it. It can follow the solution suggested by the Government, or it can adapt the proposal made by the Opposition. The Government propose that the Bill should continue to be considered as a public Bill and that any element of hybridity should be removed by an appropriate amendment. The House, in effect, adopted that solution by voting on the Government resolution of 27th May.
I wish to say a few words about that resolution. Its terms have been subjected to much ill-informed, wild and even irresponsible comment. The commentators, including many Members of this House, seem to have been mesmerised by the fact that the Government resolution contained the words "Standing Orders" and "dispensed with". They seem to have forgotten the rest of the resolution. As a result the Government have been accused of bending and changing the rules and of overruling your decision,


Mr. Speaker, or of trying to challenge it. The Government have even been accused of trying to use this House as an instrument of Government. I confess that when that suggestion was put forward by the Leader of the Opposition some of my Back Bench colleagues and I were almost overcome with shock.
The Standing Orders which were dispensed with in this resolution were not any Standing Orders appropriate to this Bill, because there was none. The resolution said that the Standing Orders appropriate to the legislation should be dispensed with for the very good reason that this procedure could only be followed once the examiners had reported the Bill to be hybrid.
In case it is still thought that there was something improper about the resolution proposed by the Government and adopted by the House, let us bear in mind that if the examiners had reported that the Bill was hybrid, the Bill would then have gone to a Standing Orders Committee, which would have been bound to consider the question of dispensing with the Standing Orders which the House itself had considered. Therefore, since we have many precedents to turn to of the Standing Orders Committee deciding that very point both ways, it is absolute nonsense and humbug to argue that what the Standing Orders Committee can do as a matter of course this House cannot, without constitutional outrage, do by itself. I hope the authors of those hysterical and ignorant comments and criticisms will apologise, not least to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.
The second solution with which we are confronted is that suggested by the Opposition, who propose in their motion that we should proceed immediately to refer the Bill to a Select Committee. Let it be noted that that solution also accepts that we are confronted with an unprecedented dilemma, because in their motion the Opposition are not proposing that we should apply the Standing Orders appropriate to private legislation. There is no suggestion that we should refer the Bill, under Standing Order 38, to the examiners and thence to the Standing Orders Committee. They propose, as innovatory to what the Government are

proposing, that we should proceed immediately to refer the Bill to the Select Committee.

Mr. Maxwell.Hyslop: Mr. Maxwell.Hyslop rose—

Mr. Speaker: I do not want to give away any secrets but the hon. Member is likely to catch my eye in the near future and many hon. Members want to speak.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Gould: How is the House to decide between these two courses, one proposed by the Government, the other proposed by the Opposition? For the Opposition it is argued—and I am trying to do my best to be fair to them—that the Select Committee procedure where a Bill is in effect hybrid is of the utmost importance in allowing petitioners to present their view and defend themselves. That is a very weighty consideration, at least in principle if not in fact.
It is also argued, as has been pointed out by the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), that it would be wrong for the Government to benefit from their own mistake, if it is a mistake by the Government, and that if anyone should suffer it should be the authors of the mistake. The force of that argument depends very much on the view one takes of the gravity of the mistake and the nature of the injury, and I shall speak on both points.
That point would have considerably more force if it could be shown that the Government had, either deliberately or habitually, refused to supply information as a means of avoiding the ordinary rules appropriate to hybrid Bills. No such suggestion can be or has been made, save this afternoon by the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), who quite ungraciously chose to bluster his way into a denial.
On the other hand, to set against those arguments, we in this House should pay some attention to the real issues which underline the procedural difficulty confronting us. What has really happened is that through a minor technical failure in drafting, a mistake in drafting, the Bill fails to carry through the purpose which


it sought to achieve and which everybody understood, at least until 27th May, it would achieve.
The only person or body whose position has been possibly prejudiced by that failure is Marathon, which wishes to have no recourse to a Select Committee. Marathon is content for the Bill to proceed with the necessary amendment. Its sole interest is to see that the mistake is rectified in the way proposed by the Government.
Of course, it is true that if the Government's solution is adopted there will be other firms whose position will also be affected; but let us be clear how their position will be affected. These firms were potentially beneficiaries, not victims, of the Government's mistake. They stood to gain a quite unforeseen and fortuitous benefit when the mistake was discovered. It was not the mistake itself which prejudiced their position. It was the discovery of the mistake which offered them the prospect of an unconvenanted benefit, a benefit to be obtained as a result of a mistake which was so technical in nature that it had survived all the examinations by the Public Bill Office and others, a full Second Reading debate and 58 record-breaking sittings of the Standing Committee. It was not until the whole procedure had been completed that the mistake was discovered.
If it is to be rectified in the way proposed by the Government, no one will be prejudiced by such rectification in the sense of suffering an ultimate disadvantage. All that will happen is that the situation will have been restored to what the firms concerned, and everybody else, understood it to be before the mistake was discovered.
There are others apart from the firms, their boards and shareholders, who are affected by the decision we take. Those are the people who work in the industries concerned. Many of them may have views on nationalisation one way or the other. I do not think anyone would pretend there is unanimity among the respective work forces, but they have an interest, and I suggest they have a unanimous interest, in having some certainty in their industries, and some sign of a readiness to grapple with the overwhelming problems facing the industries. They will have little patience with us if

they see a highly technical and entirely fortuitous accident blinding us to our wider responsibilities.
In the end, rules exist to serve us and, through us, the people of this country; and where there are no rules which are directly applicable we have an obligation to proceed by common sense. There can be no serious case for applying to this important Bill rules which are inappropriate and whose only effect would be to delay the Bill and introduce uncertainty into the industries concerned; rules whose only approximation to relevance arises by virtue of a mistake which could be rectified tonight without prejudice to anybody.

6.55 p.m.

Mr, Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: We are having this debate tonight purely and solely for one reason, that the Government, in circumstances which do them no credit whatsoever, put through the Division Lobby on the second vote on the evening of Thursday 27th May a Member whom they had pledged would not go through the Division Lobby. Had that not been done, Mr. Speaker, by your casting vote governed by precedent the Government motion would have been defeated, and by now, probably, the petitioners would have completed the process of presenting their petitions to a Select Committee of the House. So that act of sending through the Division Lobby a Member of whom the Government had previously pledged that he would not vote has not even saved the Government any time, very possibly, because in the weeks that have gone by since then the petitioners could have exercised their right and the Select Committee could have reported to the House. Never was a contrivance less successful in expediting a Bill.
The only other conclusion at which the House can arrive, therefore, is that what the Government dreaded was not the passage of time—because that time has passed—but that the petitioners, and particularly trade unionists engaged in the ship repairing industry, should have the opportunity of presenting their case before a Select Committee of the House. That was what the Government dreaded. They dreaded having members of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, the Boilermakers Union, the


Transport and General Workers' Union and the Electrical Trades Union appearing before a Select Committee of this House to substantiate the prayer in their petition. That is what the Government were determined to deny to them. No time has been saved.
What have the Government, admitting their error in the matter of the vote, done in recompense? What they have done is not to allow the House to vote again, because it was not within their power to refuse that. This is not universally recognised. A recommittal motion attaches itself to the Order of the Day to proceed to the further consideration of the Bill by form, not by the gift of the Government. Unlike other motions put on the Order Paper by the Opposition, it does not depend upon the good will or benevolence of the Government in according it time. It is not the Government who decide whether such a motion appears above or below the line in the Orders of the Day. It is entirely a matter for Mr. Speaker whether he does or does not select a recommittal motion.
All that the Government have done is to put forward a motion, which I also signed last night, in the name of the Prime Minister, suspending the operation of Standing Order No. 53, which would have curtailed the debate. It was clear to anyone who was in the Chamber at Business Question Time last Thursday that the Leader of the House was not even aware then of what Standing Order No. 53 was or what its effect would be, to judge from the confusion into which he was thrown by a reasonable question on that subject.

Mr. Foot: I can dismiss that right away. I said at once that of course the Government would apply that Standing Order. We knew the position perfectly well. The hon. Gentleman should not presume that he is the only hon. Member who knows anything about Standing Orders.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: The Leader of the House has revealed the truth of what I said: had that Standing Order been applied, as the right hon. Gentleman has just asserted the Government intended, there would have been only one 10-minute speech on each side. It was to suspend the Standing Order, not to

apply it, that was essential if we were to have this debate.
The first of the two motions before the House refers to your action, Mr. Speaker, should there be an equality of votes on the second. I want to put as succinctly as I can the case for the first motion. The right hon. Gentleman has very reasonably asked himself and the House "Are we setting a precedent which we should come to regret?" On any motion of this kind I should ask myself the same question.
I hope—and I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman does too—that the circumstances are unique in which a Government secured the passage of a highly contentious motion by putting through the Division Lobby a Member of who they had pledged he would not vote. I also hope that it is the wish of all hon. Members that that situation will never recur. It would be utterly discreditable were it ever to do so. Therefore, I think we can say with more than hope—with confidence—that we are dealing with a unique situation.
The Government, aware of their own misconduct, rightly take the view that the vote should be taken again. But for procedural reasons, on which we are putting the case that they snatched an unnatural advantages in that precedent binds you, Mr. Speaker, to vote with the opposite effect to that to which precedent guided you on the night of 27th May, they have not restored the stolen goods but have restored only the sack in which they were stolen.
It will come as no surprise to many hon. Members to know that the Clerks are firmly of the opinion, after weighty researches, that if there were to be a tie on the second motion, you should, by precedent, Mr. Speaker, vote with the Noes. I accept that that is their unanimous advice.
Nevertheless, there are weighty reasons why precedent should guide you to the opposite course, Mr. Speaker. Let us take the authoritative work by Philip Laundy, "The Office of Speaker". In the third paragraph on page 90 there is the record of how your predecessor, Mr. Speaker Abbott, acted in such a situation. We read:
Voting in favour of the appointment of a committee to enquire into delays in the Court


of Chancery on 5th June 1811, he explained that 'upon a question, whether this House should or should not exercise its own powers of enquiry into the causes of an existing grievance, he should give his vote with the Yeas'.
There is an existing grievance, the grievance against which at least 21 petitioners have lodged petitions which are certified by the Journal Office as being in due form. There is a machinery by which the House can examine those grievances, the Select Committee.
On page 96, in the same chapter, which is on the casting vote, we read that Mr. Speaker
will avoid using it to effect a change in the law, or in such a way as to deny the House a further opportunity of considering an issue.
If Mr. Speaker's casting vote were used tonight to prevent the Bill from being sent to a Select Committee the House would have no further occasion to consider the merit of the petitioners' petitions and any redress that the Select Committee might recommend. When the Select Committee reported, it would be open to the House to reject its recommendations, to reject amendments made by it.
Therefore, a massive case can be made for saying that were there a tie tonight and you, Mr. Speaker, were to vote with the Ayes, as we term it in our modern parlance, you would be giving the House a future opportunity to take a decision on the merit of the petitions which would be denied for all time if you voted iwth the Noes.
On page 403 of the 19th edition of "Erskine May", on the principles on which Mr. Speaker gives his casting vote, we are told:
Although the decisions of successive Speakers have not invariably been consistent, two main, and one subsidiary, principles emerge:
(1) that the Speaker should always vote for further discussion, where this is possible, e.g. Mr. Speaker Addington's decision of 1796".
The only course which would permit the House further to discuss the complaints and grievances of the petitioners would be for Mr. Speaker to vote for the Bill to go to a Select Committee.
Therefore, the first of two questions to which I address myself is as follows. Is it the case, Mr. Speaker, that precedent binds you to vote with the Noes? I put it to you, on excellent authority, that

the answer is "No". Precedent does not so bind you.
The second question is, in circumstances in which Mr. Speaker is not bound to vote "No" and in which there are other precedents on which he might well vote "Aye", is it fair to leave Mr. Speaker in the position in which he must take this uneviable choice, one into which he has been thrown by the defaulting action of the Government in not withholding from the Division Lobby an hon. Member of whom they had pledged that he would not go through that Lobby?
It is those circumstances which make it an obligation of honour on the Government that there should be a vote on a motion tabled by them—an obligation on which they reneged—or at least one supported by them. It is not too late for that, or to relieve you, Mr. Speaker, of that agonising choice in this situation by advising their supporters and by themselves voting for the first of these two motions which will have the effect of placing you in the same position you were in on the second vote of the night of Thursday 27th May. None of us knows whether there will be a tied vote tonight on the second motion. Here we are dealing with a point of principle. This is the touchstone of the Government's good faith—if they want to be honest with the House of Commons.
If the Leader of the House does not feel an obligation to be honest to the House of Commons, he betrays an old office. He will also betray the whole of his distinguished parliamentary career in days gone by. He should grasp that nettle, instead of leaving, in a manner which does credit neither to him nor to the House that he should serve, that unenviable decision to Mr. Speaker, knowing that whichever way Mr. Speaker casts the casting vote there will be criticism from outside the House, although, I hope, not from inside. The Leader of the House owes that duty to the Chair, the House of Commons, himself, the Prime Minister and to his hon. Friend who went through the Division Lobby when his Chief Whip had pledged him not to do so. That is a multiple and consistent duty.
I now turn to the second of the two motions under debate. I do not wish


to run through all the merits as were debated on 27th May.
The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) asked why the third motion to set up a Select Committee—it is Order of the Day No. 47—does not bring itself within the Standing Orders. That is a fair question. The answer is technical. The motion would have been out of order if it assumed that the Standing Orders which had been dispensed with by a resolution of the House, how-over mischievously and unhappily obtained, were nevertheless still in force. That would be reversing a decision of the House. The learned Clerks advise me that Motion No. 47 is workable. That is why it appears in its present form rather than pursuant to the Private Business Standing Orders which were dispensed with by the second vote on the night of 27th May.
This is the reason for the second motion. It was drawn up so that petitioners might have their rights, the procedure for examining petitions and deciding whether or not they merit action to redress grievances, and whether redress should or should not be embodied in the Bill, whether such amendments should be embodied in the Bill.
The decision of such a Select Committee is not final. On Report—which would by now probably be in process, following the Select Committee, had it not been for the lamentable events following the second division on 27th May—the House would have the opportunity to decide whether to agree with that Select Committee, or with any amendments that it recommended. It might recommend none at all, but if it recommended or put in amendments, the House could remove those amendments on Report.
What has happened since 27th May? The petitioners have been denied their rights. The House has been denied the advice of a Select Committee inquiry into those petitions. The Bill has in no way been expedited in its passage by denying those petitioners their rights. That has not been achieved. The hyperbole about the necessity to expedite the passage of the Bill to save jobs is revealed for what it is—hyperbole—as it has not speeded the passage of the Bill.
In inviting members of the Government's standing in public opinion, this motions I do not ask them to do anything that I have not done in the House. I must have voted against approximately 20 three-line Whips during the time that I have been in this House—in one of which the Government majority of the then Conservative Government was reduced from 100 to one. In other words, there was every opportunity that my party would have been defeated. On none of those occasions had my party done violence to the traditions of the House. Nor had it broken a pledge not to put any of its Members through the Division Lobby. In every case my decision was based on merit which, rightly or wrongly, I considered should override the strong request—but never an order—of a throe-Line Whip. I ask right hon. and hon. Members to do what I have done. I do not invite them to do something that I have never done.
If the first motion is passed, the House will have relieved you, Mr. Speaker, of a duty it has no right to ask of you in these circumstances. The second motion, if passed, will give belated justice to the petitioners.
I therefore ask the Members of the House of Commons—not as members of the Labour, Conservative, Liberal, United Ulster Unionist, Plaid Cymru and other parties—to vote for both these motions so that the House of Commons may do justice both to itself and to the citizens for whom it is legislating.

7.18 p.m.

Mr. Norman Buchan: I shall seek to be briefer than the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop). The hon. Gentleman made an astonishing speech. I do not think that it helped his case. It reminds me of the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), who referred to a Roman general, who everyone thought would have been successful if they had not first seen him in action. I thought the same about the right hon. and learned Gentleman's speech. I should have thought that he would have ripped up the Government's case if I had not heard him attempt to do so. I feel very much the same about the hon. Member for Tiverton. The situation has crumbled away in his hands, and he has been left with very little to say.
I want to pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Tiverton about the first motion. It always sounds very strong and authoritative in this House to say across the Floor "Let us not think of our parties. We should all vote together." Opposition Members never say it about themselves. They never say "We put the House first, so we shall come and vote with you". It always works the other way round. It is a strange habit into which the hon. Member for Tiverton, for all his individual attitudes, seems to have fallen.
The hon. Member made a case for the changing of the rules in this instance. It is a curious argument for those who say that they have brought forward a motion because the rules have been bent then to seek to bend the rules to bring about another situation. It is a very dangerous line of argument.
Secondly, the hon. Member for Tiverton argued, as did the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), along lines urging the Government to take the initiative in supporting the first motion. Having spent most of his speech telling the referee what to do, he was not content with that, because he wanted to lock up the other team in the dressing room as well. It is an extraordinary proposition to bring forward.
The hon. Member for Henley always reminds me of Zuleika Dobson. Hon. Members will recall that every time she arrived at Henley all the men jumped from their punts for safety. I think that a good many Opposition Members today felt that they would like to do the same. The speech of the hon. Member for Henley was unwarranted, and he did not have the grace to withdraw his charge. Earlier, I raised this matter as a point of order and I was told that I should raise it in my speech if I succeeded in catching the eye of the occupant of the Chair. I assume, therefore, that I am in order in doing so now.
The speech of the hon. Member for Henley was misleading to the point of being a lie. The charge was that the Government, the draftsmen and the civil servants combined to hide the hybridity of the Bill. As I understand it, no other Opposition Member has made such a charge. Only the hon. Member for Henley has made it, and only today—[Interruption.] If he has made it before, his crime is compounded. It warrants a

withdrawal, and I hope that he will withdraw it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) was among those who were involved in the early discussions on the Bill. He said on 26th May:
The Ministers who were responsible went out of their way to ask advice from ministerial lawyers because we wanted it made clear that we should, in all circumstances, avoid any hybridity."—[Official Report, 26th May 1976; Vol. 912, c. 456.]
That is very different from saying "hide any hybridity." The hon. Member for Henley is saying precisely the opposite of what the Government did. My hon. Friend the Member for Walton said that Ministers made every effort to ensure that this question would not be involved in the Bill. There was no question of deliberately hiding it, as the hon. Member for Henley now suggests.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of state made precisely the same point in the debate on 27th May. He said:
drafting took full account of the need to avoid hybridity.
That is very different.
And it appeared to have been drafted successfully from that point of view, since it was cleared with the House authorities as not being hybrid."—.[Official Report, 27th May 1976; Vol. 912, c. 632.]
In his charge, as well as draftsmen, civil servants and Ministers, the hon. Member for Henley is coming very close to suggesting that the House authorities and presumably Mr. Speaker's Department were parties to this decit.

Mr. Heseltine: I expressly went out of my way to make it clear that in no way was that the case.

Mr. Buchan: It is implicit in the hon. Gentleman's earlier charge. If he wants to clear the decks of that, he will have to withdraw the earlier one, too.

Mr. Heseltine: Obviously this is very important. In no way is it implicit, because the evidence put before the Clerks of the House was based on the advice from the Department of Industry, and in my view the Clerks of the House are entitled to reply on the expert evidence available to them from the only Government Department which has that information in its possession.

Mr. Buchan: The charge remains that the hon. Gentleman was saying that deceit was involved, that an attempt was made to hide it, and either he is accusing Mr. Speaker's Department of stupidity because those in the department did not see it or he is accusing them of duplicity because they went along with it. I hope that before the end of this debate the hon. Gentleman will recognise that he has put his foot in it enough in the past few weeks without doing it again today.

Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman must not put into my mouth words which I deliberately and consciously avoided using in my speech. I say to him in all good faith that I was involved in several discussions with many of the people concerned leading up to the debate on 27th February. I know exactly what was being said to the officials of the House and who was saying it. In no way were the officials of the House able to make a judgment other than a judgment on the evidence produced for them by the Department of Industry.
This is critically important. By all means let the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) attack me for the references which I made to the political input from the Department of Industry. I am happy that the hon. Gentleman should attack me on those grounds. But I beg the hon. Gentleman not to suggest that I involved the officials of the House, the Clerks of the House or Mr. Speaker, because I expressly excluded them from any responsibility.

Mr. Buchan: The hon. Member for Henley is now withdrawing the lesser charge in order to avoid the greater one. It is rather like a man being charged with murder and pleading guilty to housebreaking in the hope of avoiding the graver charge. I ask the hon. Gentleman outright whether he still says that there was a deliberate attempt by draftsmen, by civil servants and by Ministers to deceive this House and the people of this country. Is that his charge?

Mr. Heseltine: I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman has sought to raise this matter again. I shall try to put to— him—

Mr. Buchan: I ask the hon. Gentleman to reply "Yes" or "No".

Mr. Hesekine: The hon. Gentleman knows full well that he cannot put a question to me in those terms and expect me to answer "Yes" or "No" about a complicated matter of this kind. I have no wish that anyone should have any doubts about what I said, and I shall clarify it.
There was no doubt in the minds of those who gave the instructions for the drafting of this legislation that Marathon was within the broad definition of the shipbuilding industry of this country. They also knew that, if the Bill was drafted in a way which embraced the whole of the industry, Marathon would be included, and they also knew that express undertakings had been given by the Government of the day and by the Opposition of the day that it should not be included. In those circumstances, the drafting had to be such that the hybridity, which in equity we knew to exist, was in theory removed from the Bill. As it turned out, the draftsmen failed. That was what I was saying.
Those words that I have used now totally describe the position that I was expressing earlier—

Mr. Varley: The hon. Gentleman's word was "deceit".

Mr. Heseltine: I never used the word "deceit". The Secretary of State is pursuing the matter from a sedentary position. He has used the word "deceit" in an attempt to clarify the situation. But my recollection is that I never used the word.
I have explained, I hope fairly, to the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West precisely what I meant when I used the words that I did. I have explained the position fully, clearly and accurately. In those circumstances, I do not think we need pursue what in fact is a diversion from the aspects of a debate which all of us know to be of critical importance.

Mr. Buchan: The hon. Member for Henley knows that he used the term "hide the hybridity". He has neither the grace to withdraw nor the courage to clarify. That is the charge. The House will judge him accordingly. Two reputations have gone today, and the hon. Gentleman's is one of them.
I want to deal with one or two other matters. I am afraid that I have been delayed on this one. At the outset I said that I should be brief. However, it was important to spend time on this. The hon. Member for Henley spent a considerable amount of time trying to confuse the issue. I have spent some time trying to clarify it. I hope that I shall be forgiven for doing that.
When one is putting a case in one's own interest, one has to be careful. I am pleading a case in my own interest. In my constituency—I share this with my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Mabon)—there are about 8,000 workers whose livelihood is at stake in respect of the Bill. I met some of them and the management on Friday, and I have to speak in the interests of those workers. While we have been arguing technicalities today, it is the condition of life of those workers that I am concerned about, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie) in respect of Scottish Aviation. It is no hyperbole to say that most people in the shipbuilding industry require, first, quick governmental policy decisions. That is the first priority of all, whether they are in favour of public ownership or not.
Secondly, the vast bulk of the workers in the shipyards want the Bill to go through as the only means of safeguarding their livelihood. I was going to spend some time on this. I was going to deal with investment and many other things, but I leave it at that point since we are today talking about technicalities.
It therefore behoves hon. Members representing areas in Britain, and particularly Scotland, which depend so much on the shipbuilding industry to consider carefully what they will do this evening.
I would address my closing remarks to the Scottish National Party. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould), in a brilliant speech, completely demolished the Opposition's case, and the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), in his rejecttion of the first motion, demolished that. I therefore want to speak to my compatriots in the SNP. During the discussions on the Bill they have put forward various reasons why, in the past, they could not support it.
On 2nd December the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) said that he was opposed to the Bill because of the lack of an element for taking a considerable amount of decision-making to Scotland. He said:
Indeed, it deals with the question of industrial democracy, which is welcome, but it does not deal with decentralisation, which is equally important. On these grounds my hon. Friends and I have no alternative but to oppose the Bill."—[Official Report, 2nd December 1975: Vol. 901, c. 1509.]
That rejection was based on the lack of decentralisation involved in the Bill.
Later, on 27th May, the Leader of the Scottish National Party, the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart), said:
We would much prefer to be working in a Scottish Parliament … but while we are here let us try to have some concern that the democratic processes and procedures of the House should not be diminished in any way. That is why my hon. Friends and I will vote against the motion tonight."—[Official Report, 27th May, 1976; Vol. 912, c. 711.]
Their second reason for opposing it was the processes and procedures in this House.
They have now come up with a third reason—the question of unemployment. They say that unless there is a guarantee in respect of employment they cannot support the Bill. On each occasion when the Scottish National Party has said that it opposes the Bill, it has given as its reasons decentralisation and the processes and procedures of this House.
On the question of decentralisation, or devolution, the Bill goes a very long way. What it does—[Interruption.] I wish that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor) would make up his mind whether he is a Scot Nat or a Unionist, because—[Interruption.] For heaven's sake, he should deal with something he understands.
As far as devolution, or decentralisation, is concerned, the Bill goes very much farther than simply decentralisation to a single Scottish authority. It envisages the bringing of decision-making down to localised areas. It would bring it down to workers in yards or factories. That is what it envisages. If the Scottish National Party believes in decentralisation it must support the Bill, because decentralisation which limits itself to a single Scottish authority has


very little to do with decentralisation but a great deal to do with statist and centralised attitudes. I do not want a centralised Scotland. I do not want statist concepts. I want genuine decentralisation and devolution going down to the people working in the factories.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, particularly at the end of such a brief speech. Is he aware that many of the shipyards—not all of them—wish for a Scottish structure for the industry? Would he not agree that we cannot have full decentralisation in an industry of this sort if we put in a firm like British Shipbuilders whose intention is to administer and guide the activities within the shipyards?

Mr. Buchan: That is what I mean by saying that the Scottish National Party is a centralist party. It is not a decentralist party. It is a statist party. It says that it is sufficient to have a Scottish authority. I want to bring it down very much further than that. I want to bring power down from the management to the workers on the shop floor. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman's question.
It is true that Scottish National Party Members have been getting thumped by the shop stewards over the last few weeks. They know the reason for it. May I appeal to the Scottish National Party to listen to the shop stewards? The shop stewards are in favour of this proposal because of the question of unemployment.
The hon. Member for Dundee, East put a question to the Secretary of State. He wanted a guarantee that there would be no unemployment as a result of the Bill. Of course, no Government of any kind can ever guarantee that in the future there will never be any unemployment. We can certainly fight on single issues, on the question of no unemployment, but no one can give any such general guarantee.

Mr. Donald Stewart: What about the steel workers?

Mr. Buchan: The steel workers in Scotland recognise how serious the unemployment situation would have been if there had not been nationalisation of

the steel industry. I wish that the hon. Member would sometimes listen to them.
If the hon. Member for Dundee, East wants to give a guarantee for support for an independent Scotland, will he guarantee that in an independent Scotland there will be no single redundancy? It is the same argument. If it is sufficient to reject the Bill because it might lead to one person unemployed, surely it would be a sufficient argument to reject an independent Scotland, if it leads to one person being unemployed.
The truth is that this measure will maximise employment. Are the 8,000 workers in my constituency who are at risk of losing their jobs entirely to be told that the reason why the SNP rejects the Bill is that it could not save one job and that, therefore, the other 7,999 have to go? I would urge the Scottish National Party to think carefully about the interests of the Scottish people. [Interruption.] If the Leader of the SNP has something to say, I wish he would say it.

Mr. Donald Stewart: The hon. Gentleman will not give way to me.

Mr. Buchan: I am giving way now. I always give way to the Scottish National Party, as its Members should know, but they do not usually welcome it. The appeal I make is that the Scottish National Party should put the needs and interests of the Scottish people before its own genuinely held views about the need for a Scottish State. Will not SNP Members put the economic needs and livelihood and well-being of the Scottish people first? That is the only thing on which I take issue with them. My interests are the interests and the wellbeing of the Scottish people.
The workers have asked for the Bill to be supported, the shop stewards have asked for it and the STUC has asked for it. We know and they recognise the difficulties into which SNP Members put themselves through their own genuine convictions. I am asking them for once to go past that, as we have often had to do in different situations. I am an expert on the occasions when we have not carried out some of our ideology. I beg the SNP to listen to the people of Scotland and to those who have spoken on their behalf.
Members of the SNP said that they objected to the previous action because it was against the procedures and processes of the House.

Mr. Donald Stewart: The hon. Member has read only a small part of my speech if he is concentrating on what I said about processes. I referred to the decentralisation aspect and to the jobs which were lost after steel nationalisation.

Mr. Buchan: I agree that the hon. Gentleman referred to unemployment and decentralisation. I deliberately used his reference to concern for the democratic processes and procedures as being the reason why he and his hon. Friends would vote against the motion. He explicitly linked the two. He also used the argument put forward in the media as a reason for rejecting the Bill that night. Those were the reasons which he put forward. Only tonight has the major argument of employment come up.
The hon. Gentleman can join us on the side of the right because the processes and procedures of the House are challenged in these motions. In the first, the Opposition seek to dictate to Mr. Speaker on a single issue how he should behave—a highly dangerous precedent and one which bends the rules and procedures to which the SNP Members adhered in their previous vote. The second motion goes against Standing Order 38, the existing rules of the House.
On all these grounds I expect to see SNP Members in the Lobby with us tonight, and I shall welcome them there.

7.42 p.m.

Miss Harvie Anderson: Many hon. Members still wish to speak and I shall be brief. I shall not therefore seek to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan). As neighbours in Renfrew, we have opportunities nearer home to continue the argument. At least we have one thing in common—our belief in full employment.
I am glad of the opportunity to speak in this debate, not because it is concerned with nationalisation as such but because I believe it to be concerned with two other things of greater fundamental importance to the House.
I am opposed to the measure to nationalise the aircraft and shipbuilding industries because it will weaken the strong who today provide good and expanding employment, and it will not in so doing help the weak who may well need help but can be given help through measures already on the statute book. But that matter is scarcely relevant, except as background to this debate, which concerns the rules of conduct of this House and the rights of minorities throughout our democracy.
We make our own rules, under a continuing process that has gone on for centuries. Of course there will always be need for change from time to time, but if that change is made by a majority—in this case a narrow majority—to suit the doctrinaire determination of a Government, any Government, that can only lead to a dictatorship as objectionable as any. Rules should be changed only after due consideration of their purpose and their scope in the interests of Parliament and of democracy itself.
The procedure that some propose to abandon is one designed to protect citizens, even if minorities. In our democracy there is, happily, the probability of the majority of today becoming the minority of tomorrow. Firmly built into our democratic system are the rights of minorities and their entitlement to opportunity and freedom to express their views. At a time when millions, and many individuals known to us all—I should have thought this would appeal to Labour Members—are denied that right, we here should take double care to sustain the rights of minorities. That right is at the heart of the procedure proposed by my right hon. Friend today.
The second fundamental consideration lies in the motion concerning Mr. Speaker. It is perhaps right to put on record today the words of one of our great Speakers, Mr. Speaker Lenthall, who said, on 4th January 1642, during his Speakership:
I have neither eye to see; nor tongue to speak here, but as the House is pleased to direct me".
Those words are never far from the mind of he or she who occupies that Chair. But in the knowledge that the House so directs, the House itself has a great responsibility.
The Prime Minister said, on 22nd June, that after the vote on 27th May it had been alleged
that the Government's majority had been achieved by questionable means and since then there has been a sense of grievance."—[Official Report, 22nd June 1976; Vol. 913, c. 1361.]
Yet unless the motion regarding the equality of votes, standing in the name of my right hon. and hon. Friends, is passed tonight, the House, in the event of a tie, will in fact have directed Mr. Speaker, through the accustomed pattern of precedent, to support the very result conceded by the Prime Minister to have been achieved by actions far less than in the best traditions of this House. It seems a thousand pities that the Government did not themselves put down the procedure motion.
For these reasons—reasons far wider than the Bill itself—I hope that those who value this place and who seek to restore its reputation as the forum for all the people will vote with their consciences, albeit not with their party, tonight.

Mr. Paul B. Rose: The right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) made a characteristically entertaining speech, bordering occasionally on the frivolous, but I doubt whether it would have entertained the workers on the shop floor in Hawker Siddeley, in my constituency. He referred particularly to the rule of law. I should have thought that the rule of law meant, first, the supremacy of Parliament and, secondly, the independence of Mr. Speaker, which is in jeopardy under the first of the motions against which I shall vote. Thirdly, those of us who read our law were always told that legal rigidity should be tempered by equity. A classical note was introduced by the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East and the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), who will have remembered his Aristotle in that regard.
The equity of this situation is that we are discussing the future lives and employment prospects of thousands of workers in two major industries. They would give little ear to the sort of debate that we have had about procedural niceties such as hybridity or non-hybri-

dity. These past few weeks have done little to enhance the reputation of this House or of democracy itself.
Not only those who work in these two great industries but the public at large will hardly have been impressed— I do not apportion blame—by the scuffles on the Floor of the House and the use of technicalities like hybridity or prima facie rulings about hybridity employed by the Opposition at a late hour, after a mammoth Committee stage, to block the public ownership of these two major industries. I want to address myself to only one of them tonight—aviation.
Above all, aviation depends on forward planning. Unfortunately, the issue of Marathon and the issue of hybridity has adversely affected the industry, because every day that we go on talking in this way and putting back the vesting day for these publicly-owned industries, our competitors are stealing a march on us. The design stage, the drawing-board stage, the injection of capital and the production of our aircraft are such that one cannot afford the time that the House has been wasting. There is a need for a national strategy for aviation.
Not long ago, during an Adjournment debate, I strenuously argued the case for accepting the HS146 project. I did so particularly on the ground of the threatened dismantling of skills and technical know-how that we have accumulated in Britain. So far at least it has not been dismantled, but the scheme, like so many things this week, has been put on ice. I argued—in terms of the market for short-haul feeder aircraft and the danger of 20,000 redundancies that may well result—that it would be unreasonable to leave that matter to a private concern whose main preoccupation is the risk that it takes in the aviation field against the profitability that it undoubtedly has in other fields. We need a whole series of new civil projects if we are to establish ourselves in the world aircraft markets during the 1980s and if we are not to allow the airframe industry to be totally destroyed. The project for a short-haul feeder aircraft may yet come about if the industry is nationalised. I cannot see it coming about without it.
The tragedy of the debate today and of what has happened over the weeks is that, day by day, new competitors are


entering the market and existing competitors are getting on with the job of producing aircraft, while we fall behind. We should seriously consider collaboration with other countries for large, sophisticated projects. The House should be deciding on the structure of the industry instead of discusssing technical niceties. I trust that the Minister will stand by his predecessor's original sentiments expressed about the short-haul feeder aircraft. He said:
Clearly, no Government could view cancellation without serious concern if this country is to remain a leading aircraft manufacturer in the future and meet a world market which, whatever its short-term difficulties may be, is likely to continue to grow".
The debate should be the launching pad —certainly the runway—for taking public control over the aviation industry, and I hope that it will open the way to a number of civil and military projects, both on a national scale and in co-operation with other European countries. Whatever our ideological commitment to or against public ownership, in favour of the motion or against it, it is essential that we eliminate uncertainty in the industry, because the plague of uncertainty is worse than any other.
In Britain we have a number of advantages in the industry. We have lower labour costs than our competitors, the necessary capacity and skills, technology and equipment, and an adequate domestic market—if one includes Europe, NATO and the Third World. They do represent the home market when one is dealing with competitors such as the United States and the Soviet Union.
In 1965 the Plowden Report favoured a majority shareholding in BAC and in the airframe and guided missile section of Hawker Siddeley. The Government have poured vast sums of money into those industries. That is why I fail to understand the speech by the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), because he talked about the sum of £300 million being put into the shipbuilding industry because of nationalisation. By nationalisation one is taking over assets for the nation. In the past, all that we did was to pour money in. Since 1966, the Government have spent £300 million to support the airframe industry, £350 million on military research and development, and £800 million on purchases. We have not been taking over assets; we have

simply been pouring money in. I do not see how the Opposition can possibly oppose nationalisartion on the grounds that they have put forward. I do not see why we should not pursue a purchasing policy for our airlines and military projects that brings into play an integrated strategy for the various public corporations and Government Departments.
The industry is overwhelmingly dependent upon the Government and, therefore, upon taxpayers' support, and it behoves the industry to be accountable. It cannot be accountable when it is divided into a number of private sections. Public ownership for the aviation industry will provide an unprecedented opportunity, not only for project research, design and development but for the location of much of the work.
Unemployment in the North-West is marginally higher than in Scotland, and I would like to see the new corporation based in Manchester, where, at Woodford and Chadderton, we have one of the greatest collections of aircraft workers in the country.
Public ownership opens up a new area of democratic control and accountability. I was glad to see the measures described in an article by the Minister of State in last week's Labour Weekly, injecting an element of participation in decision-making to those whose futures are directly affected in the industry. Those of us who constantly meet the representatives of Hawker Siddeley, BAC, ASTMS or the AEUW are impressed by the knowledge that those people have of their industry, by their personal involvement in the industry and in the future of aerospace. They believe, as I do, that it is an exciting industry. They believe in the need for industrial democracy within that industry, enlisting the accumulated experience, knowledge and wisdom of the men who have the skills to produce the Harrier, the Concorde, the MRCA, the Nimrod and the Trident.
If the debate ends in a defeat for the Government, once again we shall see delay and procrastination, and once again see our competitors stealing the market. I issue a word of warning to the Government. Not a single new project is in the pipeline in the civil field and there is little in the military field. Here, I echo one note from the Opposition Benches, which is that we do not want


to see a repetition of a situation in which a Labour Government take over a derelict industry—as happened with the coal mines or the railways—and then have to bear the odium of the cost of modernisation of that industry and the cost of retrenchment, and all that that involves.
If we are to obtain the most efficient use of our resources, certainly the two main groups that have made a significant and creditable contribution to Britain's technology, export effort and military strength must be unified under public control, with public accountability. I do not believe in a "lame duck", piecemeal strategy for propping up individual concerns—the sort of thing that we have seen under various Governments in the recent past.
This is an industry which, if public money had been rewarded by the transfer of the equity in it over a period of time, would not have needed a Bill to bring it under public ownership; it would have been owned by the public already. There would have been no need for Opposition Members to table procedural motions, to make points of order, to raise voting disputes, or to bring in the question of hybridity with regard to oil rigs. There would have been no need for that to have happened, because this industry, by dint of the injection of public money up to this date, would already have been under public control.
Ten years after Plowden, public accountability in the industry, which peculiarly and unusually, relies to such a high degree on Government support, must be susceptible to one answer, and one answer only: public ownership. That proposition is based upon the realities of the industry and not purely on ideology. I do not believe that there is room in today's world for the kind of internal competition that we have seen in the industry. Rather, the future involves cooperation across State boundaries on the more sophisticated projects and a national industry in Britain.
We have taken the plunge in matters such as the MRCA. The Minister of State for Defence was able to say recently that it had been a remarkable success story in terms of collaboration so far. By the same token, we ought to take the

plunge in the civil field. We want to see not only the HS748 and the BAC 111 a number of possible projects that could be powered by our own Rolls-Royce M45 or RB401 engines, such as the Trident, the Trident 4 and the European A300B—again, one of the many planes that have, to use the current term, stretchable—as civil projects on which we can concentrate. I should like us to take the plunge particularly with regard to the A300B and its future derivitives far more strongly than we have done at present.
Above all, we have a negligible stake at present in the potentially lucrative market of involvement in the business of feeder line light aircraft and short-haul aircraft. This country should not have to rely on wholesale purchases of American aircraft if we are to maintain our industrial and technological independence and to preserve the airframe industry into the 1980s.
Similarly, in the military field there are great opportunities. Those who have seen the remarkable performance of the Harrier, the Strikemaster, the Nimrod and the Nimrod Mark 2 will know that with all those planes, which pay tribute to our industry, there is a future for our industry under public control. There is a whole range of military and civil aircraft which may be viable, and which are capable of being initiated by an integrated publically-owned industry.
I do not believe that we can afford the fragmentation of our industry and outmoded industrial structures for one day longer. That is why I repeat that it is particularly unfortunate that we should be wasting yet another day on a procedural wrangle about two industries that are so vital to the well-being of this nation—industries, particularly the aviation industry, in which our British technological "know-how" gives us an advantage over the developing countries which so often compete through lower labour costs in so many other fields. To get into a situation in which we have to import our aeroplanes will not only undermine the excellent export record that we have seen —subsidised always by Public money, year after year; a factor that is always overlooked by the Opposition—it will also mean a vast burden on our balance of payments.
Every new project includes not only the work force of the project itself but the work force for the spares and the equipment for a decade following it. That means that we should support our own projects and have confidence in our own industry, in projects such as the maritime Harrier, for example, because that in turn creates the basis for exports. I see no reason whatsoever why we should be going in for, say, the derivatives of Boeings rather than our own planes. I want to see positive policies in the British aviation industry in support of these projects, and in support of those that are produced by combined European technology. Only with a national industry that is accountable to this nation as a whole, with industrial relations and a democratic structure within it enlisting the support and enthusiasm that undoubtedly exists on the shop floor, can we take this prerequisite step. Every day or month of uncertainty favours our potential competitors and is certainly favouring our real competitors in a number of fields.
Today the Opposition have done no service whatsoever to British industry, public or private, by putting down these motions, nor, indeed, have they done any service to the House or to the people of Britain, merely by underlying the uncertainty that surrounds these industries or by their veiled threats of unscrambling future publicly-owned concerns. I wonder whether there is any possibility that, as with steel, coal, atomic energy, rail transport, or any such industries, the Opposition really intend to unscramble a nationalised aircraft industry. They know that it is not on.
What the Opposition are doing at present by these procedural motions, by introducing diversionary tactics at a particularly late stage in the debate, is to delay the vesting dates for two major industries. These debates may be very entertaining to Opposition Members, but I am sure that if the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) were to accept my invitation to meet shop stewards and workers on the shop floor at Hawker Siddeley at Chadderton, he would not find it so amusing. He would not find it so amusing to know that their jobs are in jeopardy and to know that their livelihoods depend on that industry and the steps that the present Government intend

to take. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will regard this as a serious and not a frivolous debate.

Mr. Tom King: The point that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make is that it is only through nationalisation that these people have any future livelihood. That is the basic tenet of the Bill, and the whole proposition we totally reject. It happens to be untrue. It is also untrue for those many people, already referred to by the Secretary of State, at present working in the shipyards, who are now facing the loss of their jobs following nationalisation.

Mr. Rose: The fundamental fallacy of the hon. Gentleman's argument—had he been listening to my argument a little earlier, lie would realise this—is that it is only by dint of public money for the airframe industry and in research, particularly military research, and by public money going into the purchase of those planes, that that industry is viable in the first place. If public money is propping up an industry and the equity remains in private hands, there is not the public accountability that we believe necessary, and it is only by—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman asked a question. At least he should do me the courtesy of listening to the reply. If it is only by the injection of that money that the industry is made viable, there are those who believe—the hon. Gentleman is not among them—that public money involves public accountability, and accountability to those who provide the money rather than to those who reap the dividends.
Hawker Siddeley was unable to go ahead with a project because it felt there was greater profitability in other sections of the industry. It is only because of public money being invested that it will be possible to go ahead with the HS146 project—if we ever do. It is only public money that makes such projects possible. It is for that reason that public ownership, and public ownership alone, is the solution to the problem.

8.11 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Re-runs of events are rarely as exciting as the first showing. This debate is no exception. Nevertheless, the discussions are equally as important as they were on many other occasions when the Bill has been discussed.
My party—the matter has been raised by hon. Members—does not take an ideological standpoint on nationalisation. Its policy is to subject past examples of nationalisation to critical study. That study has shown that there have been many weaknesses which have hit Scotland particularly adversely.
The criterion we adopt is what is best for Scotland and for the people of Scotland. In that I do not dissent from the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan), although it is only on the very odd occasion that I do not dissent from him.
I was rather shocked by the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), who at the end of his speech let the Conservative cat out of the bag. He indicated that the Conservative Party was quite prepared to lose jobs swiftly, if I may take up the construction put on it by the Government Front Bench. Certainly that is an attitude that I do not share, nor does the Scottish National Party.
It is all very well forecasting and saying that in theory jobs should be transferred from the industries in difficulty into newer and other industries, but if we do not have those jobs where are the men to go? That is one of the very great problems confronting us.
The only part of the Secretary of State's speech that was optimistic was that concerning Scottish Aviation. He made reference to the need for Scottish Aviation to have its own separate identity and, one would hope, along with that to have a great deal of autonomy. Certainly the Secretary of State has referred to a high degree of local autonomy. But that is a phrase which begs some questioning, because what is a high degree and what is local autonomy? There can be autonomy and non-autonomy. It is difficult to draw the line.
I hope that, in relation to Scottish Aviation, it will be the profit-making part of whatever organisation it is—the Laird Group or British Aerospace—and that it will have the maximum autonomy.
The Government have an obligation to show, in their dealings with the Bill and with the two industries—particularly in relation to shipbuilding—that when they propose nationalisation they are not

simply putting this forward as part of a Socialist litany which they have to carry out without regard to the consequences.
There is no doubt that the shipbuilding industry in Scotland, as in other parts of the United Kingdom and other parts of the world, is in very great difficulty. That difficulty is due to over-capacity. It is an over-capacity which, unfortunately, in some ways has not been engendered from within Scotland. The industry there has been declining over the years and has not contributed to the world-wide over-capacity which has developed. Nevertheless, that being said, the Government are under the obligation to show that, when they talk about this measure being useful in regard to jobs, it is not an empty promise.
It is very significant that, if I were to sum up many of the arguments against the Morrisonian type of nationalisation imposed by Labour Governments over the last 30 years and criticise it, I could not do better than to follow the arguments adopted in Early-Day Motion No. 475, headed
Steel closures and redundancies in Scotland".
It is signed so far by 13 Scottish Labour Members. They have doubts about the effects of nationalisation.
Since some hon. Gentlemen on the Government side have obviously taken very great trouble over its draftsmanship, it is worth while reading the motion and picking out the kernel of it. It says:
That this House is seriously alarmed by reports of impending large-scale redundancy and closures of steelworks within the steel industry in Scotland; rejects these decisions by the British Steel Corporation as arbitrary and socially unjust and calls for a moratorium upon them; recognising the steady decline in the proportion of steel production by Scottish plants, calls upon the Government to give guarantees that Scottish steel production will be sustained, and that in the meantime no orders should be transferred to steelworks outwith Scotland; calls for a complete renewal and modernisation of the industry in Scotland with a planned phasing-out of obsolete plant and the creation of jobs for those workers who are displaced; urges that during the temporary fall in the demand for steel the main burden should not fall on Scottish steelworks; considers that there can be no good reason for the importation of large quantities of steel from Common Market and other countries; and calls upon the Government to find urgent solutions to this extremely serious problem which is causing anxiety not only for


steel workers and their families but for everyone in Scotland.
I think that many other hon. Members would agree with that.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Hear, hear.

Mr. Wilson: I notice a "Hear, hear" from the hon. Member.
I am particularly interested in the call for steel production to be sustained, and that
in the meantime no orders should be transferred to steelworks outwith Scotland.
It suggests that the British Steel Corporation is steering orders away from Scottish steelworks, if my reading of the motion is correct.
This is one of the main objections which my party has to nationalisation. It will involve monolithic operations where control over industries passes out of our economy, and not merely out of the country but away from people.
I know very well that the Government say there will be no monolithic corporation dealing with shipbuilding and that it will be a form of holding company which will be engaged in the guidance of the industry. But there is very little in the Bill to indicate that decentralisation will occur on that scale. There is to be a Government amendment, but that amendment is deplorably weak.
Suppose that the Organising Committee says that there will be decentralisation. Suppose that this is agreed and that the board of British Shipbuilders says that it will rubber-stamp the plans of the Organising Committee because the same people are involved. At the end of the day, five years later—after, say, the Conservatives have replaced a number of the gentlemen on the board of British Shipbuilders—what guarantee will there be that the normal processes of centralisation will not occur? That is a fault of the Bill. I shall not go into that any further, but it is an essential part of the type of nationalisation that we have had in the past.

Mr. Harry Gourlay: If the hon. Member would prefer that the shipbuilding industry should remain in private hands, to whom would he then appeal? If the industry is in public ownership, at least this House and its Members have somewhere to which to appeal in order to get something done. That is my first

point. Secondly, does the hon. Gentleman repudiate what the Vice-Chairman of the Scottish National Party is reported as saying—that she supports the nationalisation of the shipbuilding and aircraft industries? Thirdly, is the hon. Gentleman aware that when it was stated yesterday that the Government were expected to win the vote in the Division tonight, the shares of Robb Caledon —a shipyard in the hon. Gentleman's constituency—went up?

Mr. Wilson: The compensation paid to Robb Caledon is generous, but the Government have been mean in respect of some other companies which have been nationalised. It is because of the way in which the Government have set their compensation terms. If the hon. Gentleman dislikes them, he should take up the matter with his own Front Bench.
I would much have preferred the Government to take the compensation money paid over to the shareholders and to allow them to go out with their pockets jingling with silver, and put it into an investment fund available to the yards which were willing to take Government investment by way of equity shareholding. That is the best way of tackling it, but, unfortunately, we are not faced with that choice.

Mr. Tebbit: When the hon. Gentle. man is thinking about the structure of the industry, which means so much to him, I hope he will consider what has happened in other industries, not least the way in which British European Airways, British South American Airways and British Overseas Airways Corporation have inevitably coalesced under all Governments in one centralised, London-based organisation.

Mr. Robert Hughes: It is a spectacular success.

Mr. Wilson: If I may interrupt this aviation debate, special fears exist in Scotland about the organisation of these industries. I had a meeting yesterday with shop stewards representing all the yards, and I expected to be given a rough going-over on the question of the vote. The shop stewards pressed us to vote in favour of the Bill, but their main worry was that under nationalisation they would lose their jobs. They feared this because of leaks of speeches made by the Secretary of State.
Will the Government take into account the jobs in this industry and give assurances to the workers that by engaging in the proposed development under the Bill they will not lose their jobs? The fears are there, and they have to be allayed in a way which the workers find credible. With unemployment as it is in Scotland, it would be a tragedy were any additional male unemployment to be created.
If we are to judge the Government's sincerity in the devolution programme or in programmes about structures and jobs, we come back at the end of the day to Scottish control. I agree with the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West that it is necessary to have decentralisation of the yards, but if we are to have a body to look after the industry in Scotland it must be a Scottish body and not a British body. Many shipyards have brought that to my attention. My own yard has sent telegrams to the Secretary of State and the Minister of State saying that it wants a Scottish structure.

Mr. Buchan: I accept that the shipyards are pressing on unemployment, but do they not also make the simple point—as did the Scottish TUC—that they want the Scottish National Party to vote for the Bill?

Mr. Wilson: All sorts of people make representataions to us. We have to judge the issues on what is said and the intentions. We have a Bill which on the face of it is a centralising Bill. It may be intended to be decentralising, but on the face of it there is no Scottish control. We have to judge in the light of the speeches made and the hard facts about shipbuilding world-wide. The workers are seriously worried about their future in a nationalised industry. If the Government wish to persuade anyone, they have to answer those questions in a hard-and-fast fashion.

8.24 p.m.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: The right to petition the House is a very ancient right, but that right is empty unless the petitions can at least be examined. In purely public affairs the right to petition has become almost a farce, because it has been overtaken by the expression of views, particularly at Ques-

tion Time. Question Time has become, for the person or group who would petition on purely public and disinterested matters, the way in which the citizens has his grievances considered. The right of petition, going back into the very origins of Parliament, remains as the citizens' privilege where there is a private interest, but the right of petition without having the petition examined is no right at all.
On 26th May Mr. Speaker declared that there was a prima facie right of petition and for that petition to be examined and probably heard. That right at that moment had become vested in the petitioners and potential petitioners. That is a vested right, which is equivalent to a right of audience in a court, almost to a right of property. That right was sought to be taken away by the motion passed by the House 30 hours after Mr. Speaker had given it. The petitioners and potential petitioners had their foot already in the door, but, by a simple resolution of the House, the door was sought to be slammed in their faces.
Many of the speeches made in the debate on the following day, if I may say so with diffidence and humility, struck me as splendid rotund oratory, but is rather beside the point. With diffidence, I refer to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), who, in a tremendous discharge of oratory, spoke of the supremacy of Parliament. I warned him that I should refer to him. He said:
Though Parliament is constitutionally sovereign as a law making body, its supremacy in our unwritten constitution does not stand alone. Dicey, in his monumental work, defined the two elements in our constitution that he referred to as its pillars—namely, the sovereignty of Parliament and the rule of law. Strike away one, and the other cannot maintain unaided the fabric of a democratic constitution…. The exercise of the sovereignty of Parliament is dependent on a respect for the fundamental rights."—[Official Report, 27th May 1976; Vol. 912, c. 701.]
Parliament is not involved, neither is its sovereignty involved, in the fact that on 27th May this resolution of the House of Commons was passed, which is a totally different matter. If a resolution of the House of Commons is to take away a vested right of the citizen it is a very strong matter indeed, if it is, in fact, legal. Statutes can do anything. They can take away any right, vested or not, with or


without compensation, but if a mere resolution of this House can do it as well, under the guise of a purely procedural matter, because the House is master of its own procedure and can do anything it likes procedurally, this is jump in thought, and I ask the Leader of the House to consider whether it is right.
It is true that this is a procedural matter, but it is more than that. It is a matter that takes away a right already vested, and to that extent it is, in a sense, illegal, because only Parliament, by statute, can do that.
What can the petitioner do about it? The truth is that there is very little, if anything that can be done. But because there is no remedy, that does not mean to say that in the theory of law and constitution, there is no right. The Government should consider very carefully whether the removal of a vested right by a simple resolution of one House of Parliament is not, in a very deep sense, unconstitutional. If the petitioners went to the High Court, sought a mandamus, and ordered this House to hear and examine the petition, they would be rejected, and rightly so. The judge would say that this was a discretionary remedy and that he did not want to get involved in disputes between the Houses of Parliament and the courts, which exacerbated the history of these two great institutions between the 18th and 19th centuries.
The fact that there is no remedy is surely no reason for proceeding roughshod over what is a right. When my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East refers to the sovereignty of Parliament, he is right in saying that Parliament should use its powers sparingly, and with regard. But how much more should one House of Parliament, by a mere procedural resolution, use these powers sparingly and with regard to a vested right?
I must join with my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) in this confusion of thought, because he said, on that occasion on 27th May, about my right hon. and learned Friend's speech:
The House must clearly understand the purpose of hybridity. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), put it clearly in his speech, we must recognise there is no limit to the power of this House."—[Official Report, 27th May 1976; Vol. 912, c. 743.]

Of course there is a limit to the power of this House. When I read that sentence, I thought that there was a misprint or that a negative had been inserted which should not have been there. It is not that there is no limit to the power of the House; the whole of my contention is that where a vested right is concerned, there is a limit. It may be a limit of constitutional propriety, or even a limit of legality. The fact that Parliament itself is sovereign and has no limits on its decisions is nothing to do with the powers of the House of Commons, which are purely and merely procedural in terms of its resolutions.
If the House of Commons takes away, by mere resolution, a vested right to have a petition examined by what Hatsell called "the examiners", and then tried and heard by the what Hatsell called "tryers", there are two processes.
This is to my mind a very sad occasion. I shall not develop it further than to plead with the Leader of the House to wonder whether he has been constitutionally properly advised and whether, if he must proceed on the removal of private rights from outside the House, he should not have done it by statute, if, indeed, it should have been done at all. After all, these are rights that are very ancient.
As we proceed in our unwritten constitution we do so gradually and sometimes imperceptibly by the whittling away of rights, by what seem to be small precedents created by the urgency of the case—an argument pressed upon us repeatedly by the Government both today and a month ago. This is an urgent case. It is only a lately-discovered right. The right was in existence for only 30 hours. The argument goes that since it is only a small baby we should smother it. That is just the sort of argument that will, in the end, smother all the big rights and all the minority rights, and which will, particularly in the guise of a mere procedural resolution—because procedures are in a curious and unique way tied up with substantive rights—smother them so that those outside whom we seek to represent and whose grievances we seek to present will in the end find no redress available to them at all.

8.36 p.m.

Mr. William Small: I have listened with interest


to the classicists dealing with individual rights. I believe, however, that my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) has advanced the most logical, clear and concise case yet put forward. I always enjoy listening to the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) and the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke). If I were to go back into history as they did, however, I would refer to the Phoenicians. They were the people who turned hieroglyphics into the alphabet.
It was the Greeks who turned the alphabet into the law. They enunciated the principle of the right of the citizen to appear before the Assembly. It was applied to a constituency about the size of Derby. That right was implemented on the lines of the Select Committee principle and, to avoid elitism and discrimination between the aristocrats, the peasants and the corn pickers, the members were selected by lot. The number so selected was 511. That principle has come down through history in the right of citizens to appear before the Assembly.
I listened with interest to what I might call the town crier from Tiverton, who presented the petitions. I do not know whether they were induced by demand or by knowledge of the law. The first petition came from Mr. I. A. D. Mann, a director of Yarrow's. It appears, therefore, that the town crier has a long voice which reaches to many people whom I know personally but who never sought my assistance over the exercise of their so-called rights. I am not denying their rights; I am trying to explain the delegation of them that the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) has in mind.
On 27th June there appeared on the Notice Paper a motion setting out the details of a Select Committee as envisaged by the hon. Member for Tiverton. It sought to provide that the Select Committee should consist of seven members and that three should be the quorum. That is the sort of delegation of rights that the hon. Member had in mind. These, then, were to be the code breakers. The hon. Member be-

lieves that three members should be able to decide on the degree of hybridity. They are to be his chosen instrument. I find it difficult to analyse the value of that exercise. This whole decision would be delegated to just three members. Who would head the three? What would be their qualifications for delving into this cryptic matter of hybridity? I personally would find it difficult to hand over responsibility for that decision to three members of a Select Committee.
"Erskine May," the great "bible" of this place, is a historical conversation between hon. Members. There are often revisions. It is not a static list of rules and guidance. The Greek word "nomos" may mean law or, when narrowly defined, can just as commonly mean custom or institution. "Erskine May" is in this category. It lays down guidelines for the House on procedures, custom and practice.
In all the time that I was a shop steward, I never read "Erskine May". I knew about many things, but I never knew about "Erskine May" and its effect on the House. I am suggesting that it is a conversation piece and is subject to adjustment.
The idea in the first motion that Mr. Speaker should be instructed how to vote is an amazing slight on the culture and nationhood we have built up in this country. I remember arguments in the past about whether hon. Members should be instructed how to vote by their constituency parties or whether they were delegates. A motion telling Mr. Speaker how to vote at the end of a debate goes far beyond that.
I look at the face of Japanese shipbuilding and compare it with the face of our own industry. I see the need for nationalisation and a strategy for shipbuilding. A great Japanese admiral once cried "Toro, toro, toro", which, for hon. Members who do not know Japanese, means "We have taken the enemy by surprise". After 58 sittings of the Committee on the Bill, the hon. Member for Tiverton took the House by surprise. That is the only reason for this vote tonight.

8.43 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Baker (St. Marylebone): It is exceedingly difficult to have a clear-cut debate on clear-cut issues in this


House. Various threads have wandered through our proceedings today, and at times I felt that I was in the Scottish Grand Committee. Only the most insensitive English Member would fail to appreciate that the way in which the SNP votes tonight is of more than passing interest to the Government.
Basically, this debate and the most interesting speeches have been on procedural matters and their constitutional implications. One of the most interesting speeches was made by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould), who made a much better constitutional case for the Government than anybody on the Front Bench has thought of so far. The hon. Member is clearly trying for the Tiverton crown.
No one would have believed an hon. Member who said at the beginning of this Session that by the summer we would be debating such arcane constitutional measures as reversing Mr. Speaker's decision within 24 hours of its being made, and re-running debates and instructing Mr. Speaker how to vote on a particular matter. Yet I suspect that we shall have many more debates like this in the next two years. The authority of the Government, as shown in the majority they can command, is tentative. Much depends on the sick list, and whether, for instance, someone had a heart attack yesterday, or, when those on the Government Benches are divided, as they were last night, on their courageous capacity to abstain. But whatever it depends upon, it is clear that the constitutional matters that have arisen in the course of the past six to eight weeks in the House will come up again and again in the next two years.
There is one simple and clear lesson that we all have to learn, and especially the Government—namely, that when they do not have the absolute authority that a clear majority gives they should not act as if they had it. The mess that we have got into with this Bill, and with the whole business of the House, is due to the appalling intransigence of the Leader of the House. The right hon. Gentleman acted as if he had had a complete and utter majority and the power to push through business. He must appreciate that one cannot bully the House to get business through as he has tried to do in the past six to eight weeks.
As a result of the right hon. Gentleman's attitude, progress on the Bill has been delayed. The Prime Minister, the Leader of the House, and the Secretary of State for Industry in his opening speech this afternoon, have chosen as the nub of their argument—this applies to nearly every Labour Member who has spoken, including the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Small)—that the Bill is so important that it must go through. It could have enjoyed much more progress if the motion on 27th May had been passed. By this stage the examiners could have examined the petitions and returned to the House; indeed, we may well have been half way through Report. But blame is being thrown around as to who is delaying the procedures and progress of the House. The truth is that the Leader of the House has to accept a great deal of the blame.
I wish to concentrate on what I consider to be the main constitutional issues involved. The House of Commons, as Mr. Speaker has said, and as Labour Members have frequently said, is in charge of its own procedure. We are the masters here. That has been the position that has enshrined the development of the House for the past 200 or 300 years. The rules of the House become even more important in the absence of a written constitution. However, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) said, we are faced with difficulties when the rules of the House are used, as they were on 27th May, to deprive certain citizens of their right to objection. I believe that we have to question—and I approach these matters of procedure in an innately conservative way—the absolute supremacy of the House over the control of its own business. That supremacy means, in terms, the supremacy of the Whips' Office.
When the Leader of the House speaks of parliamentary sovereignty—it is different when he speaks from behind the Dispatch Box, as opposed to below the Gangway—he means the sovereignty of the Whips' Office. Is that entirely satisfactory in the situation that we are moving into, with a large number of minority parties in the House?
A small example is the strange business motion that appeared on the Order Paper last Thursday, which the Government wisely saw fit not to move. The effect of the motion was to introduce a guillotine to fall half-way through a Bill. It sought to deem that a Bill should have a Third Reading at 7 o'clock. It was in order. It would have been in order for the House to pass it, but I ask the House to consider the reductio ad absurdum of that motion.
I understand from the Clerks that the Government could table a motion to the effect that all Bills, whether they be in Committee or on Report, should be deemed to have a Third Reading at 10 o'clock this Thursday night. Members may say that it would be absurd for any Government to do that, but would they have said a year ago that it would have been absurd to think that the House of Commons would change its rules overnight, reversing Mr. Speaker's decision, instructing Mr. Speaker how to vote, and taking away the rights of a petitioner to petition? All I am saying is that in this situation we are moving in uncharted constitutional seas. It is my growing conviction in constitutional matters that a majority of one is not enough.
I ask Labour Members to reflect on the consequences of this matter when the political wheel, sooner or later, turns and when they one day find themselves on the Opposition Benches. Let them consider what weapons they will be able to lay their hands on against a Government determined to carry out procedures to the limit to get their way. The only option open to an Opposition in those circumstances is that of obstruction. That is why the reaction of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in the last few weeks has been correct. Indeed, the Prime Minister had to recognise this in offering the olive branch.
I believe that this House can proceed —I would go so far as to say can survive —only if the Government of the day behave in a way that accords with the general convention built up by the House quite outside Standing Orders. Those conventions are derived from precedent; their foundations are laid in forbearance and maintained by common sense. There is a network of convention that guides us all. It is fragile, and in the last few

weeks it has been tested, it has taken the strain, and in certain respects has snapped and broken.
If the normality of parliamentary procedure and Government is to be resumed in this country, the Government must recognise that the nexus of convention must be re-established. Without it, the only policy for the Opposition is that of obstruction.

8.52 p.m.

Mr. Ivor Clemitson: Let me begin by making two assertions which I hope will not be challenged. First, there is no Standing Order which specifically deals with a situation of a prima facie hybrid Bill after the beginning of a debate on Second Reading. Secondly, there are no precedents for the question of hybridity being raised after the beginning of Second Reading. Those two assertions cannot be denied on either side of the House. Nor can it be denied, as the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Baker) said, that we are in uncharted waters. Therefore, assertions involving the Government bending the rules are ill founded.
The question of possible hybridity was raised by the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) on 25th May, and Mr. Speaker ruled on 26th May that in his opinion the Bill was prima facie hybrid. The question of the extent and seriousness of the hybridity was raised, as was the question whether some authority should be designated to deal with such matters. Indeed, Mr. Speaker made it clear in reply to my point of order that he had not given any instructions about what should happen, and, indeed, had given no instructions that the Bill should be referred to the examiners. Therefore, the question of the correct and orderly way in which to proceed was, and is, a matter for the House to decide.
The hon. Member for Tiverton turned his attention to the report of the Select Committee on Hybrid Bills and the Resolution of the House of 14th February 1949. He attempted to argue that various petitions presented against the Bill could be heard by the House as a whole. Mr. Speaker ruled that the hon. Member was trying to build a house on sand and that the Committee was solely concerned with procedure within Select Committees once Standing Order 32 had been complied with.
The suggestion has been made that Standing Order 38 should apply to this situation, notwithstanding that we have had Second Reading and the rest. I do not want to spend long on this and I merely reiterate that Standing Order 38 deals only with the situation before Second Reading and is clearly not designed to deal with any other situation. I repeat what I said in a previous debate: that the fact that the Standing Order deals only with the pre-Second Reading situation shows that our predecessors were either very lacking in foresight or intended that the question of hybridity should be raised and dealt with only before the Second Reading started.
For the sake of argument, however, let us suppose that Standing Order 38 were to apply to this situation, all those arguments notwithstanding. What would happen? The Bill would have to be referred to the examiners of petitions for Private Bills, and they would say whether or not in their opinion the Standing Orders were applicable. The examiners might or might not decide that they were applicable. If they so decided, they would so report; the Bill would go on to a Select Committee, and the Second Reading would have taken place.
The proposal before the House today, however, is very different from that because it proposes quite simply that we as a House should submit the Bill to a Select Committee. In other words, it proposes to short-circuit the whole procedure laid down in Standing Order 38. It cannot in any meaningful sense be held to be an application of Standing Order 38 to this situation. Yet this is the same Opposition as were charging the Government with the foulest of crimes for proposing to suspend Standing Orders in relation to the business on this Bill. In other words, the Opposition are proposing that we should remove all these stages laid down in Standing Order 38 and, above all, remove the vital matter of the examiners deciding whether the Bill was hybrid. They are either misinterpreting Mr. Speaker's ruling by, in effect, seeking to delete the words "prima facie" in front of "hybrid" or they are saying that it is for the House to decide the question of hybridity and that if the answer is "Yes, the Bill is hybrid", it should go to the Select Committee.
The Opposition are seeking to remove the judgment of the examiners and replace

it by the judgment of this House. Once they have done that, they have conceded much of the argument which we have been putting forward from this side of the House. They have said that Standing Order 38 is not applicable, which is the point we have been arguing all along. I submit that it is for this House to decide, not only in the light of the narrow technicalities of the issue involved but also in the light of the Bill as it has already been exhaustively debated, as we well know, and also in the light of the bad effects that continuing uncertainty will have on the industries involved.
None of those factors applied before Second Reading, when the question of hybridity should have been raised. There has been ample opportunity for the facts to come to light. By clear implications, the rules put a time limit upon when such matters can be raised.
The right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) has attempted to refute that argument and to put the full onus of responsibility on Ministers for raising matters of fact about hybridity before Second Reading. It has even been suggested that Ministers attempted to hide the fact; that was the word used by the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine).
The relevant fact about the vessel was known—though evidently not by Ministers, because if they knew it they honestly believed that it did not make it a vessel. However, it was known by people who were and are affected by the Bill. Yet we are now asked to show great sympathy and compassion for supposely aggrieved parties.
Leaving that on one side, we have a new piece of evidence which must be dealt with by the House, not the examiners or the Select Committee, because the Select Committee's job is not to determine the question of hybridity. It is to deal with petitions against a Bill.
I do not want to go over the arguments about whether the three-legged construction in question is or is not a ship within the meaning of the Bill. Even if we concede that the vessel is indeed a ship and that the Bill is therefore hybrid, it is still up to us to decide what to do with the Bill. We must weigh the seriousness or otherwise of the hybridity against all the other factors which I have mentioned.
It is the judgment of this side of the House, and my own judgment, that the argument about the vessel is so marginal and small, considered in its full context, that the best way for us to proceed is to go ahead with the remaining stages of the Bill, making any amendment necessary to remove any possible doubt on the question of hybridity. It is a matter of judgment, of balancing the rights of citizens, which the right hon. and learned Gentleman is so concerned to protect.
There are many citizens involved, including the many thousands who have their livelihoods in the industries concerned. It is a question of balancing those interests against the interests of certain companies whose basic objections to the Bill are not in substance changed one jot or tittle by the discovery of the building of the "Key Victoria" on the date in question in that yard.
What we see, in effect, is an attempt to enable certain interests to have a second bite at the cherry. The issue has now been exhaustively debated in two debates and on two points of order and two rulings by Mr. Speaker. Ingenuity in the defence of vested interests has been stretched to the bounds of credulity and beyond the bounds of the rules of the House.
The Opposition have made at least three suggestions about what we should do, suggestions which are contradictory and yet, with total illogical abandon, have been successively supported by the same right hon. and hon. Gentlemen. At least their third suggestion, which we are now considering, concedes that it is here that we should decide the question of hybridity and what to do, whether or not the Bill is hybrid. The Opposition have come half way. Perhaps it is too much to ask that they should follow the dictates of logic and go the whole way by helping us get on with the job of putting the Bill on the statute book.

9.4 p.m.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: I have been sitting in the House all day for one purpose only—to make a dramatic appeal to Scottish National Party Members to vote for our motion. Regrettably, when I am called to speak they are outside, deciding how they will vote, without hearing my arguments.
As someone who worked in the Clyde shipyards all his working life, who represents a shipbuilding area and who is still the adviser to the Shipbuilders and Repairers National Association, I must say that shipbuilding is in a serious situation. But the Government have made no case that nationalisation will solve its problems. All our experience of nationalisation is that it does not make job security any better for the workers, that it adds extra burdens to the taxpayer, and that it makes life more difficult for the consumer.
The Government advanced reasons, as they said, to remove uncertainty. I agree that uncertainty damaged the industry, but the main damage was done by the two years of uncertainty caused by the Government proceeding with nationalisation proposals. The Government say that nationalisation is needed so that they may draw up a plan to reorganise the industry. The Minister knows that that is not true. The shipbuilding industry approached the Government two years ago and suggested that there should be discussions about rationalisation and planning, if that was needed. That came to nothing.
The Government say that nationalisation is needed to safeguard jobs. Coming from Glasgow, as you do, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will know what hollow nonsense that is. Nationalisation does not secure jobs. The workers of Greenwell's are a living testimony to what nationalisation means to the first shiprepairing yard to be nationalised.
The Government say that they want to introduce nationalisation so that there may be investment to improve the situation. From where will the cash come? The Government have announced, and are discussing, spending cuts amounting to £1,000 million. As the Government are even cutting down on the employment of home helps and school-crossing patrol attendants, from where will come the hundreds of millions of pounds that are needed if the Government go ahead with their plans to nationalise these industries?
This debate is about the battle for the soul of the Scottish National Party. The Secretary of State endeavours, with his silvery tongue, to persuade the members of the Scottish National Party that nationalisation will be good for Scotland.


The Scottish National Party has asked for three assurances. It has asked for a better assurance on jobs in Scotland. I hope the Secretary of State will be frank about that. The Secretary of State for Industry made a broadcast recently, during which he stated that some yards would certainly close after nationalisation. I hope that the Secretary of State will be frank and admit the truth of what the Secretary of State for Industry said —that yards will close. If he intends to seek the votes of the members of the Scottish National Party by pretending that the English or Welsh yards will close, but the Scottish yards will not, I hope that he will say so. I hope that the Scottish National Party will not be fooled by that kind of talk from the silvery tongue of the Secretary of State.
The Government admitted that yards will close. But they say that the Scottish yards will remain open, it must mean that they are deliberately discriminating against the English and Welsh yards. Bearing in mind that every shipyard except Vosper Thornycroft Limited is in a development district, how will it be legally possible to discriminate, so as to obtain the votes of the Scottish National Party, by promising preference for Scotland? That is against not only the Common Market objectives—which in any case I deplore—but those of the OECD.
I should like the Minister to say something more about the centralisation problem. I was astonished when he spoke about the local autonomy of Scottish aviation and gave Lord Beswick as the source of his assurance. Lord Beswick is the last person whom he should try to use as a means of giving assurances to the Scottish people or the Scottish National Party. Lord Beswick was the hatchet man who carved up the Scottish steel industry after nationalisation. The Minister may look to Lord Beswick for an assurance in relation to securing jobs in Scotland, but he should look elsewhere. If the Government say that the nationalisation of the shipbuilding and aircraft industries will not be centralised —that they will favour Scotland, and that there will be autonomy in Scotland—why do they not start off with the industries that are nationalised at present? Why not start off with steel, in respect of which there is a concentration of administration in Grosvenor Square,

London, instead of in Scotland, where it used to be? Why do not the Government try to make the changes that they now promise for aviation and shipbuilding, in the industries that are nationalised at present?
I believe that this is essentially a question of priorities, and I hope that the nationalists will remember that. What the Government propose is to take over the remaining part of an industry that is already half nationalised. In Britain, we have half our shipbuilding industry nationalised already. It has used up almost all the Government grants that have gone to shipbuilding, it has generated almost all the losses involved in shipbuilding, and it has created most of the problems involved in the industry. Now the Government propose to nationalise the other half, most of which makes profits, is efficient and is competing with the world.
If there is to be any question of the Scottish National Party saying that £300 million should be given to shareholders so that this industry can change hands, instead of the money being used, as it should, to provide jobs in Scotland either by cutting taxes or by making jobs more secure, I am afraid that the nationalists will be condemned.
Tonight will be a real test of the SNP. For the first time, it is being attacked vigorously for supporting a policy that is unpopular with the Scottish TUC. I believe that this is why we have seen so much scurrying around. I have enough respect for the honour of some members of the SNP to know that they will fight hard for the best interests of Scotland and will not be intimidated by the pressurising that we have had from the Government, the Labour Party, the Scottish TUC, the extreme Left and the Scottish Communist Party.
Let us do what is right for the country, which is to stop squandering money on nationalisation and to make sure that our country can provide job security in the long term. The one fact that stands out a mile is that there will be no job security with nationalisation—there never is. Nationalisation will simply mean more and more money going down the drain and the destruction of more and more jobs in both the private and the public sectors.

9.12 p.m.

Sir Keith Joseph: I only wish that more of the hon. Members who belong to the Scottish National Party had heard that appeal to common sense and to experience by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor).
This debate is about the rule of law. The story of this evening really starts at the point where Mr. Speaker himself pronounced that there was a prima facie case of hybridity in connection with the aircraft and shipbuilding nationalisation Bill.
I admired very much the speeches by the hon. Members for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) and Luton, East (Mr. Clemiston), both of whom, within their own frame of reference, sought to argue away the importance of hybridity. I thought that they made a very good fist of what they were trying to do. They were really saying what is represented by the classic remark, "It is only a little pregnancy".
The fact is that Mr. Speaker found this Bill to be prima facie hybrid. Now the equality before the law which this House puts at the centre of the rule of law is violated by hybridity. Hybridity means that identical people or organisations are treated differently by a single piece of legislation. Because of that violation of the rule of law, we have a special procedure where a Bill is identified as prima facie hybrid and is so found by the examiners.
If the normal procedure had been followed, a Select Committee would have been free, during these past few weeks, to hear the petitioners, many of whom, it appears, would have been directors, managers, and perhaps investors, but others of whom would have been members of trade unions and others, perhaps, craftsmen and wage earners who do not happen to be members of trade unions but whose voices are none the less important. Having heard the evidence, the Select Committee perhaps would have been persuaded to use the powers that such a Committee has to amend the Bill.
We cannot tell what would have happened. We cannot tell whether the Committee would have amended the Bill. We cannot tell what the reaction of the Government and this House would have been

if it had amended the Bill. However, we cannot ignore the possibility that hon. Members from both sides of the House would have been persuaded that some of the firms included in this legislation should not have been so included and that perhaps, for all we know, some firms not included in this legislation should have been included.
We are told by the Government that there are two reasons against allowing the normal procedure of a Select Committee to deal with a Hybrid Bill. To do them justice, I do not think that the Government are arguing that a finding of a prima facie hybridity can come too late in the proceedings for the Select Committee to be the normal reaction. They are saying that it is very inconvenient, but they are not saying that it is unconstitutional for a finding of prima facie hybridity, coming after Second Reading, to lead to the normal examiner and Select Committee procedure.
What are the reasons that lead the Government to try to persuade the House that we should not follow the normal procedure? There are two arguments—first, the urgency of this legislation and, secondly, that the House can always decide to overrule its own rules of procedure. Although this debate is not primarily concerned about nationalisation it has cropped up as a panacea. I shall, therefore, refer briefly to the nationalisation argument and then turn to the question of the House's freedom to override its own rules of procedure.
The argument that nationalisation is so urgent a cure for the problems of the aircraft and shipbuilding industries really does deserve to be treated with a little gentle scepticism. The Government have ample powers, if they wish, to spend money on aircraft, or shipbuilding, or ship repair. Whether they have got the money is a different matter, but they have the power to spend the money. Of course, the House meets at a time when we can all imagine the pressures being exercised from inside and outside the Government, from inside and outside Whitehall, from inside and outside Great Britian for them to cut, and not increase, public spending. We are all well aware, particularly after last evening, of the sheer difficulty that Ministers will face in accommodating their existing commitments, let alone carrying out what they know they have


to do if there is any chance of abating inflation.
The Government have powers to spend the money, although many of us think they are already spending far too much money. I remind Ministers that if they are going to splash money about that money has to come from somewhere. Often, the money they are splashing about, as they say, to rescue shipyards will come from wage earners with far less income than those the Government are seeking to rescue. People now pay direct and indirect taxation just above the poverty level. One pops one's nose above the poverty income of supplementary benefit and one is hit with 41½ per cent. combined direct taxation and national insurance contributions. Do not let any hon. Member opposite suppose that the rich will find the money. The rich have already been squeezed to the limit by this Government, and the evidence—evidence that even hon. Members on the Government side must appreciate—is that otherwise there would not be 41½ per cent. direct taxation on people £1 a week above supplementary benefit levels.
Nationalisation—State Socialism is the real name for it—is not such a roaring success that it will infallibly put everything right. Even the Secretary of State does not pretend that it will. I have some sympathy with the Secretary of State for Industry. It is a difficult task that this Government are undertaking. To increase productivity and to improve marketing ability in shipbuilding companies under nationalisation are almost impossible tasks, and yet the Government are voluntarily setting themselves to them.
State Socialism—nationalisation—imposes great handicaps on an industry. It politicises almost every decision—and far too many industrial decisions are already politicised. But if any are not politicised, an act of nationalisation ensures that they will become politicised.
State Socialism is bad enough when the customers are the poor British people. As with the Post Office or British Rail, we must take it and lump it; we are given no alternative. But these two industries, which the Government are so intent on nationalising, serve world markets and world customers who do not have to come to Britain. The danger of nationalisation is precisely that it will

reduce the orders on which these industries depend. They cannot survive, and the present jobs cannot be saved, simply on British orders—although I suspect that there will be a great deal of arm-twisting of British shippers to turn their orders, at whatever cost to them and their customers, into British shipbuilding yards.
These are world traders. Aircraft, shipbuilding and ship repairing companies establish relationships of confidence with their customers. It is not that a foreign owner wants to build a ship in Britain; he wants a ship built or repaired, or an aircraft built, by a particular British company with whose managements and workers he has established trust. But when the industries are nationalised, there is no guarantee that that foreign customer will be able to place an order with Vosper or Yarrow or Bristol Channel Ship Repairers.
The Secretary of State has refused to give a guarantee that a customer will be able to place an order with a specified yard. We are warned by him that the job of the nationalised British Shipbuilders will be to switch orders to those yards which most need them—that is, the yards which have least established confidence with foreign customers.
I ask members of the Scottish National Party to recognise the grave disabilities that nationalisation will bring to these industries. Some firms will prosper without nationalisation far better than with it. These are shipbuilding and aircraft firms which are doing well now and would have done much better but for the uncertainty cast by nationalisation. In fact, nationalisation will weaken the aircraft industry and the strong shipbuilding and ship repairing firms, and may not strengthen the weak firms. So there may be no benefit at all.
I say to the House, and particularly to those who are desperately and earnestly trying to assess the national interest in tonight's vote—distrust the panacea of nationalisation, remember that the Government have powers to spend money, if they can find the money, without the Bill.
I fear that all these arguments will be ignored by the Leader of the House. I think that he will go as far as he dares to convert hon. Members, particularly those who represent Scottish constituencies, but I would ask them to remember what has happened to Scottish Aviation.


I ask them to remember, when the right hon. Gentleman's soft words are pouring out towards them, their experience with Scottish Steel, to remember that State Socialism is not the way to win or hold world markets, and to remember also that if any firm is skilled enough to win an order from the world market it may be switched to one of the bust shipyards in England.
The Secretary of State has issued honest warnings outside the House that he cannot avoid closures. Are we to believe that all the closures will be in the North-East and North-West of England and none outside? Let those who doubt remember the powerful arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart, that this Government are now the prisoners of financial pressure— the pressure to cut what they are already spending so as not to bankrupt this country and make inflation and unemployment even worse.
The second reason why the Government are urging that the Select Committee procedure be not used is that—we are told—the House can decide to override its own rules of procedure. That is true, to a limited extent, but the story of this evening starts with the Prime Minister's recognition that the vote on 27th May left my right hon. and hon. Friends and hon. Members of the minority parties with a grievance which the Prime Minister suggested should be met by having another opportunity to vote on the question.
The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) reminded us of Heraclitus and his ever-changing river. He will be aware that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and, indeed, all the parties opposed to the Government, are not seeking to arrest the metabolism of the House. We are not suggesting that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry) should go back to wherever he was then. We are not suggesting the right hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) should go back to wherever he was then. We are interested to see how the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Crowther) will exercise his declared intention not to be Lobby fodder this evening, but we do not grudge him his vote, however he exercises it.
A re-run was offered by the Prime Minister, and we assumed—we still assume—that it was an offer in good faith. If it was an offer in good faith, surely it must involve the same framework as that on 27th May. That framework inevitably involves the use of your discretion, Mr. Speaker—guided by precedent or otherwise—when and if we come to a tied vote.
I am not as far-sighted as my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), who told us that he was aware on that date of what was going to happen. I am not aware of what will happen this evening, and I do not believe that anybody is. It may or may not be a close-run thing, but if it is, my right hon. and hon. Friends and I have put on the Order Paper the first motion to cover the event of a tied vote. We understand that you, Mr. Speaker, would have felt guided by precedent to vote against suspending Standing Orders on 27th May, which would be precisely equivalent, on this occasion, with your vote with the Opposition on the second motion tonight.
If I have to meet the challenge of the right hon. Member for Down, South that the first motion, if passed, sets a precedent, so be it. Perhaps it does set a precedent. If there is ever another occasion on which the Government cause a legitimate grievance by changing a pair, and if, as a result, there is a tie and Mr. Speaker casts his vote in a particular way, perhaps that first motion, if passed, will be a precedent. What is wrong with that?
It is true that the House can decide. Undoubtedly the Leader of the House will tell us that the House can decide, but if we decide to overthrow our rules of procedure in such a way as to defeat established rights, we must recognise that we are violating the expectations upon which the rule of law is based. Denying the rights of individuals and firms is not a formality. If I am told that we would perhaps be denying the rights of wage earners to seek help I would say that that was rubbish, because the Government already have plenty of power to give money.
The rules of procedure protect against tyranny and arbitrary government. That is why my right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) was right in


regarding the two debates as ones of principle. That is why my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) were right to speak of the Government's action as an assault on the rule of law.
I now turn to the letter that the Leader of the House wrote to The Times on 1st June. That letter strengthens my argument. Signed "Michael Foot", it appeared in The Times on 3rd June. Part of it read:
It is my conviction that if the procedures of the House are found to be so cumbersome and convoluted that major economic transformations cannot be made with reasonable speed and after reasonable periods of debate, then indeed Parliament will cease to be the place to which the people look for political and economic redress, and if that development deepens and spreads, then truly our parliamentary democracy will be in peril.
But Parliament is not an instrument of economic transformation; nor is it an instrument of educational transformation; nor is it an instrument of ethnic transformation. Those who want Parliament to be such an instrument are not just a minority but a small minority of a minority. The Leader of the House writes as if the rules of procedure are acceptable only if they enable his side to win. If procedure can be shrugged off by a vote, however narrow or shaky, Parliament becomes an instrument of Government, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition warned.
Parliament is not an instrument of Government. Parliament is the source of Government, and should be the restraint of Government; but it is not an instrument of Government. Most people look to Parliament not for economic transformation but to safeguard the rule of law, to safeguard stable money, to safeguard the Queen's peace and to safeguard honest government. We have not done so well at all those objectives that we can lightly engage ourselves in violating the expectations of the rule of law.

Mr. Heffer: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir K. Joseph: No. I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, but I have to sit down in three minutes' time. We are expected to avoid—

Mr. Neil Kinnock: If we do not change things in Parliament, we shall see them changed on the streets.

Sir K. Joseph: I think that the hon. Gentleman is misunderstanding the transformations that a small minority of a minority wishes to impose upon this country, in industry, in the economy—[Interruption.]

Mr. Kinnock: Will the right hon. Gentlemen give way?

Sir K. Joseph: No. We are expected to avoid arbitrary action and to operate by clear and known procedures. Procedure is the frame of civilisation within which we conduct our arguments and which offers some protection to those affected by us, as my hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Baker) so rightly said.
Let me ask hon. Members who have been interrupting me to suppose that it were the other way around and that a denationalising Conservative Government, intent upon breaking up State Socialism, were to win a vote by breaking a pair, and suppose the result were to lead to a breach in normal procedural rules: can the House remember long enough back to remind itself of what the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot), the present Leader of the House, would have said? Can one remind oneself of the outrage that he would have genuinely felt and powerfully expressed?
Let the House distrust the plea of urgency. There are powers to spend money if that is what the Government want—and if the Government can find the money. State Socialism may not be medicine for aircraft or shipbuilding; it may be poison. There is no reason to pass the Bill to rescue either industry.
Let the House distrust the plea that we can ignore the petitioners. So we can—but only by ourselves violating the rule of law. Scottish National Party Members should beware the soft words that they are now about to hear from the Leader of the House; they shottid trust their instincts and their experience of State Socialism and remember the cash shortage within which the present Government are now forced to operate by their own profligate improvidence.
I ask the House to vote for both motions.

9.35 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): A considerable part of the debate today, if not the majority of it, has naturally turned on the extremely important procedural questions. I shall do my best to devote most of my remarks to an attempt to reply to the criticisms and attacks made by the Opposition spokesmen on these aspects of the debate.
I should like at the beginning, however, to make further reference to some of the industrial and economic aspects of the matter to which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred at the beginning of his speech, because, although we are discussing important procedural matters, we are also discussing an extremely important Public Bill which we on this side of the House wish to see upon the statute book. It raises very important economic questions for many people in many different parts of the country.
With the disastrous situation facing world shipbuilders, the question of job security is central to the debate. The history of the industry under private ownership is one of a continuing decline and diminishing competitiveness, relieved by large-scale Government support.
No worker in the industry can have any confidence in the future under private ownership. Only try taking a grip on the situation through national leadership can we hope to emerge from this crisis with a substantial shipbuilding industry and one that is viable. We cannot escape from the results of past mismanagement.
Our policy is to maintain a major shipbuilding industry providing large-scale employment in all the traditional shipbuilding areas—Scotland, the North-East and the North-West. Speaking as a member for a Welsh constituency, I am only too well aware of the concern of Welsh Members for the future of Bristol Channel Ship Repairers. A ship repair capability will be retained on all the major estuaries, including the Severn.
Concern has been expressed that, notwithstanding the Government's good intentions, the restructuring of the two industries resulting directly from the act of nationalisation—

Mr. Peter Tapsell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for a Minister, in a debate of this kind, blatantly to read from a brief?

Mr. Speaker: It is a very old custom for the use of copious notes to be made by those on the Front Bench.

Mr. Foot: I think that there are some Members of the House who are extremely interested in the economic prospects of the industry. Concern has been expressed that, notwithstanding the Government's good intentions, the restructuring of the two industries resulting directly from the act of nationalisation will lead to losses of jobs—for example, at Broughton and at Bristol Channel Ship Repairers. I can give the assurance that this will not be so. [Interruption.]
The Organising Committee for British Shipbuilders has already made it clear that it will seek to have as much decentralisation as possible. [Interruption]. This will mean, in particular, for successful companies such as Austin and Pickersgill—and, to take another example, Bristol Channel Ship Repairers—that existing companies will continue after nationalisation to operate as Companies Act companies, keeping their own names. [Interruption.] The responsibility for the continuing success of such companies will depend in large measure, as it does now, on the local management, which has day-to-day managerial freedom and responsibility for the profitability of its yards. [Interruption.] British Shipbuilders will build on the strength of such companies, and—[Interruption].

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister should be heard while he is making his speech. [Interruption.] Order. We pride ourselves on freedom of speech in this place.

Mr. Foot: I am sorry that the Opposition do not wish to hear some of the economic matters underlying the debate, but I am sure that there are hon. Members in some parts of the House who are eager to ensure the future of these industries.
The fears of people in small, successful companies that they will be lost in a large organisation are groundless. Rather will they get the best of both worlds by maintaining most of their present autonomy with the added benefit


of the backing of the corporation. I know that it is the aim of the Organising Committee to achieve that.
Tonight's vote is about this Public Bill and how we are to proceed with it. The Government will, of course, be ready at any stage to discuss possible amendments to achieve the improvements that I have mentioned, and we shall be willing to discuss them with hon. Members and groups of hon. Members.
The representatives of the Scottish National Party—[Hon. MEMBERS: "Ah."]. Plenty of crocodile tears were shed for minorities earlier in the debate, but when someone wishes to speak on the matter hon. Members do not seem to be willing to listen. The representatives of the Scottish National Party have put down a number of amendments the purpose of which is to provide a recognised Scottish entity with British Shipbuilders. There is a powerful argument for the devolution of authority within the industry, and that is already recognised in a Government Report stage amendment to Clause 5 of the Bill, which requires British Shipbuilders to take account of promoting the largest degree of decentralisation of management consistent with the proper discharge of its functions.
I give an undertaking that the Government will review, with the Organising Committee, carefully and constructively, the wording of their own amendment and the amendments of the SNP in the context of the creation of a recognised Scottish entity within the industry, and the Government will announce their conclusions in time for the Report stage debate.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: There is a welcome from the SNP Benches for the first statement on the part of the Government on economic devolution to Scotland. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if such an entity for shipbuilding in Scotland comes into existence it must be a meaningful one? Is he aware that if my hon. Friends and I tonight consider abstaining, and if the Government do not bring in the goods by providing for a shipbuilding organisation in Scotland, we shall unhesitatingly vote against the Bill on Third Reading?

Mr. Foot: These are matters for the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends and all the rest of us in the House to judge. We are proposing what we believe is a proper recognition of the rights and claims which some hon. Members made during the debates on the Bill. We propose to continue proceedings on the Bill and as soon as we get the chance to put it on the statute book, taking into account the representations made by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) and his hon. Friends and by others.
The hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) made two charges against the Government, and in the time that is available I propose to deal with all the accusations that have been made against us. The hon. Gentleman made the charge that we attempted to cover up what was probably a Hybrid Bill and that we sought to hide the hybridity of the Bill. That was the original charge he made in his letter to The Times, and that was the charge he started to make at the beginning of his speech today. But the hon. Gentleman, under pressure, was pushed away from that accusation, and it would have been much more to his credit if he had withdrawn the charge altogether.
There is no suggestion, and no one in his senses would suggest, that the Government set out to hide the hybridity of the Bill. The Government set out to ensure that the Bill was not a hybrid Bill. We introduced it on that basis, and that accords with common sense.
The next charge that is made against the Government—it was renewed by the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph)—is that on 27th May it was wrong for us to suggest that Standing Order 38 did not apply. All hon. Members who listened to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) will agree that it was a remarkable speech, which, together with that of my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, East (Mr. Clemitson), completely demolished the case made by the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith). The right hon. and learned Gentleman also claimed that he had not been answered even in The Times. In both places he was answered. Had he followed more closely the correspondence in The Times to which he


contributed, he would have seen that, far from it being the case that his argument was not refuted, Mr. Francis Bennion, the eminent parliamentary draftsman, stated that he agreed entirely with the case I had made, and he also agreed that the course the Government took on 27th May was, far from being improper in any way, the natural and appropriate course for the Government to take in the circumstances.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Surely the right hon. Gentleman is aware that the letter from the parliamentary draftsman was written before my letter was published, and without seeing my arguments. Does not the right hon. Gentleman accept that, having thought it consistent with his ministerial position to open the correspondence in The Times, he would have been perfectly at liberty to answer my letter? He did not do so, because he knew that he had no answer.

Mr. Foot: It was not necessary for me to reply to the right hon. and learned Member's letter because his case had been demolished. Also, he had his dates all wrong, as well as his facts on that subject.
The third accusation made against the Government, which contributed to the difficulties in the House, was that in some way or other in the second vote on 27th May a questionable means was used. In the days which followed that accusation it became apparent that there was a sense of grievance on the Opposition Benches, and in many other places as well. It was certainly necessary that steps should be taken to remove that sense of grievance.
I was in favour of taking steps to ensure that the sense of grievance was removed. [Interruption.] Yes, indeed, I was. Because of that, I thought that the natural way to remove it was to have an independent investigation of the matter. That is a natural way to remove a sense of grievance when there is a difference between two sections of the House. This process which I proposed had the full concurrence of my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary. It was then proposed to the Prime Minister, and he immediately accepted the proposition that we should have an independent in-

vestigation by eminent Members of the House drawn from both sides. As a result of that initiative, a different way of dealing with the matter, possibly a superior way, was acted upon, and a report was produced which led to the statement by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
In the face of those facts, it is quite improper to suggest that we on this side of the House behaved dishonourably in any sense. We proposed a way of solving the problem, and as a result of that proposition, which was accepted by the other side of the House, we were able to proceed with our proposals.
I turn to the Opposition's motion which deals with what would happen in the event of a tie. When the proposal was originally made by the Leader of the Opposition after my announcement of forthcoming business last week, my immediate reaction was that this was a most unwise way in which to deal with the matter. I said at once that I thought that on grounds of principle it would be wrong for the House to act in that way. We believe that there are strong grounds why the motion is not acceptable. However astutely it may have been drafted— I compliment whoever devised it—its effect is to disfranchise Mr. Speaker in the Division at the end of the debate.
You will recall, Mr. Speaker, only a week ago telling the House that if you tried to stop any elected Member from voting you thought you would be the first Speaker in history to do so. We believe that it would be equally unconstitutional for the House to change the rules so as to deny you the right to vote or to destroy your independence.
Can the House really contemplate a situation in which Mr. Speaker's decision is in the hands of a majority? That was the case put with overwhelming force by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) earlier today. If we were to incorporate in the procedures of Parliament the proposition that the majority should decree how other Members should vote, in particular if we were to incorporate the principle that the House of Commons by a majority should order Mr. Speaker to vote in a particular way or order him not to vote we would have set a precedent which would have far-reaching consequences.
The Conservatives quite falsely accused me of challenging the referee's decision. Their remedy is to send the referee off the field altogether. They have slapped down a motion on the Order Paper with no apparent understanding of its consequences. We owe a great debt not only to the right hon. Member for Down, South but to others who have pointed out the difficulties.
Now that the Opposition must understand the difficulties, and now that they see that their action would be truly to change the rules in the middle of the game, I hope that whatever happens at the end of the debate they will not press this matter to a Division. It would be much better to let the matter proceed on the basis that there should be no interference with the rights of Mr. Speaker.
The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) almost argued against himself. He said that in "Erskine May", among the rules which govern the casting of Mr. Speaker's vote in the event of a tie, there were many provisions which might persuade you, Mr. Speaker, to vote with the Opposition in this case. In particular, he argued on the grounds of of the second principle which is defined there. I believe that there are further principles laid out in that volume which would encourage Mr. Speaker, in the recognition of precedents, to vote in a different way. In any case, however, this is a matter for Mr. Speaker to decide.
The hon. Member for Tiverton has over-reached himself. He is saying that the House should recommend you, Mr. Speaker, to vote in a certain way and that if you do not wish to do so the House should pass a resolution forcing you to follow our instructions. The House would be very wise to draw back from any such arrangement.
The Government decided, in view of the strong feelings in many quarters, that we should have this debate again. The more we examine these matters, the more the House is forced to the conclusion put earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test. If we adopted the Opposition's recommendations, we should be interfering with the possibility that this House could be used to transform society on a major scale.
The right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East said that this was not supposed to be the business of Parliament. He said that Parliament should be concerned solely with the maintenance of the rule of law. I believe the rule of law to be an important principle, but this debate has nothing to do with it. The procedures we are discussing have nothing to do with the rule of law, because we are carrying out procedures which apply in this case but do not apply at all in some other cases. There is no breach of the rule of law in anything we are proposing.
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East for bringing the debate back to the central question of what the House of Commons is for. We are certainly here to protect individual rights.
Whatever jeers and sneers there may be from the Opposition, I have fought for those rights more than most Opposition Members have done. I do not need lectures from them. They were prepared to ride roughshod over trade unionists. They did not care about taking away the rights of those people. If we were to accept the principle of the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East that this House should abandon its determination to try to bring relief to our people in economic affairs and abandon our capacity to transform society, we should be betraying the real Parliament.
Some of us know how rights had to be fought for in this Parliament. People had to fight to establish a Parliament, and they then fought for the rights of people outside Parliament—the economic rights and individual liberties. That is what Parliament stands for.
That is why the Bill should proceed as a Public Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "Cheat, cheat."] Let those who wish it to succeed, those who do not want to risk the jobs of our people, vote with the Government tonight.

Question put,
That, in the event of an equality of votes in a division on the Motion in the name of Mrs. Margaret Thatcher for the re-committal of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill to a Select Committee, Mr. Speaker shall declare that the Question is agreed to:—

The House divided: Ayes 293, Noes 320.

Division No. 203.]
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Adley, Robert
Fry, Peter
Macfarlane, Neil


Aitken, Jonathan
Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.
MacGregor, John


Alison, Michael
Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)


Amery, Rt Hon Julian
Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)
McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)


Arnold, Tom
Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)
McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)
Madel, David


Awdry, Daniel
Glyn, Dr Alan
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)


Baker, Kenneth
Godber, Rt Hon Joseph
Marten, Neil


Banks, Robert
Goodhart, Philip
Mates, Michael


Beith, A. J.
Goodhew, Victor
Mather, Carol


Bell, Ronald
Goodlad, Alastair
Maude, Angus


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Gorst, John
Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald


Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)
Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Mawby, Ray


Benyon, W.
Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin


Berry, Hon Anthony
Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
Mayhew, Patrick


Biffen, John
Gray, Hamish
Meyer, Sir Anthony


Biggs-Davison, John
Grieve, Percy
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)


Blaker, Peter
Griffiths, Eldon
Mills, Peter


Body, Richard
Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Miscampbell, Norman


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Grist, Ian
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)


Bottomley, Peter
Grylls, Michael
Moate, Roger


Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)
Hall, Sir John
Monro, Hector


Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Montgomery, Fergus


Braine, Sir Bernard
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Moore, John (Croydon C)


Brittan, Leon
Hampson, Dr Keith
More, Jasper (Ludlow)


Brocklebank-Fowler, C.
Hannam, John
Morgan, Geraint


Brotherton, Michael
Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss
Morris, Michael (Northampton S)


Bryan, Sir Paul
Hastings, Stephen
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)


Buchanan-Smith, Alick
Havers, Sir Michael
Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)


Buck, Antony
Hawkins, Paul
Mudd, David


Budgen, Nick
Hayhoe, Barney
Neave, Airey


Bulmer, Esmond
Heath, Rt Hon Edward
Nelson, Anthony


Burden, F. A.
Heseltine, Michael
Neubert, Michael


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Hicks, Robert
Newton, Tony


Carlisle, Mark
Higgins, Terence L.
Normanton, Tom


Chalker, Mrs Lynda
Holland, Philip
Nott, John


Channon, Paul
Hooson, Emlyn
Onslow, Cranley


Churchill, W. S.
Hordern, Peter
Oppenhelm, Mrs Sally


Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Osborn, John


Clark, William (Croydon S)
Howell, David (Guildford)
Page, John (Harrow West)


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)


Clegg, Walter
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Paisley, Rev Ian


Cockcroft, John
Hunt, David (Wirral)



Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)
Hunt, John
Pardoe, John


Cope, John
Hurd, Douglas
Pattle, Geoffrey


Cordle, John H.
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Penhallgon, David


Cormack, Patrick
Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)
Percival, Ian


Corrie, John
James, David
Peyton, Rt Hon John


Costain, A. P.
Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd &amp; W'df'd)
Pink, R. Bonner


Craig, Rt Hon W. (Belfast E)
Jessel, Toby
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Crawford, Douglas
Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)
Prior, Rt Hon James


Critchley, Julian
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Pym, Rt Hon Francis


Crouch, David
Jones, Arthur (Daventry)
Raison, Timothy


Crowder, F. P.
Jopling, Michael
Rathbone, Tim


Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter


Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)


Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Kershaw, Anthony
Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)


Drayson, Burnaby
Kilfedder, James
Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Kimball, Marcus
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Durant, Tony
King, Evelyn (South Dorset)
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Dykes, Hugh
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Ridsdale, Julian


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Kirk, Sir Peter
Rifkind, Malcolm


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Kitson, Sir Timothy
Rippon, Rt. Hon Geoffrey


Elliott, Sir William
Knight, Mrs Jill
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)


Eyre, Reginald
Knox, David
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Fairbairn, Nicholas
Lamont, Norman
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)


Fairgrieve, Russell
Lane, David
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Farr, John
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Fell, Anthony
Latham, Michael (Melton)
Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)


Finsberg, Geoffrey
Lawrence, Ivan
Royle, Sir Anthony


Fisher, Sir Nigel
Lawson, Nigel
Sainsbury, Tim


Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N)
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Scott, Nicholas


Fookes, Miss Janet
Lloyd, Ian
Scott-Hopkins, James


Forman, Nigel
Loveridge, John
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)
Luce, Richard
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Fox, Marcus
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Shelton, William (Streatham)


Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)
MacCormick, Iain
Shepherd, Colin


Fraud, Clement
McCrindle, Robert
Shersby, Michael







Silvester, Fred
Stradilng Thomas, J.
Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek


Sims, Roger
Tapsell, Peter
Wall, Patrick


Sinclair, Sir George
Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)
Walters, Dennis


Skeet, T. H. H.
Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)
Warren, Kenneth


Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)
Tebbit, Norman
Weatherill, Bernard


Smith, Dudley (Warwick)
Temple-Morris, Peter
Wells, John


Speed, Keith
Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret
Welsh, Andrew


Spence, John
Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)
Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)
Wiggin, Jerry


Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)
Townsend, Cyril D.
Winterton, Nicholas


Sproat, Iain
Trotter, Neville
Wood, Rt Hon Richard


Stainton, Keith
Tugendhat, Christopher
Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)


Stanbrook, Ivor
van Straubenzee, W. R.
Younger, Hon George


Stanley, John
Vaughan, Dr Gerard



Steel, David (Roxburgh)
Viggers, Peter
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.


Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)
Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)
Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and


Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)
Wakeham, John
Mr. Cecil Parkinson.


Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)
Walder, David (Clitheroe)



Stokes, John
Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)





NOES


Abse, Leo
Davidson, Arthur
Heffer, Eric S.


Allaun, Frank
Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)
Hooley, Frank


Anderson, Donald
Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)
Horam, John


Archer, Peter
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Howell, Rt Hon Denis


Armstrong, Ernest
Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)


Ashley, Jack
Deakins, Eric
Huckfield, Les


Ashton, Joe
Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)


Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)
de Freitas, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Hughes, Mark (Durham)


Atkinson, Norman
Dell, Rt Hon Edmund
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Dempsey, James
Hughes, Roy (Newport)


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Doig, Peter
Hunter, Adam


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Dormand, J. D.
Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)


Bates, Alf
Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)


Bean, R. E.
Duffy, A. E. P.
Jaskson, Colin (Brighouse)


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Dunlop, John
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Dunn, James A.
Janner, Greville


Bidwell, Sydney
Dunnett, Jack
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas


Bishop, E. S.
Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Jeger, Mrs Lena


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Eadie, Alex
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)


Boardman, H.
Edge, Geoff
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
John, Brynmor


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Johnson, James (Hull West)


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur
Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Johnson, Walter (Derby S)


Boyden, James (Bish Auck)
English, Michael
Jones, Barry (East Flint)


Bradford, Rev Robert
Ennals, David
Jones, Dan (Burnley)


Bradley, Tom
Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Judd, Frank


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)
Kaufman, Gerald


Broughton, Sir Alfred
Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
Kelley, Richard


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Evans, John (Newton)
Kerr, Russell


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Ewing, Harry (Stirling)
Kilroy-Silk, Robert


Brown, Ronald (Hackney S)
Faulds, Andrew
Kinnock, Neil


Buchan, Norman
Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.
Lambie, David


Buchanan, Richard
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Lamborn, Harry


Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)
Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)
Lamond, James


Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Flannery, Martin
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Leadbitter, Ted


Campbell, Ian
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Lee, John


Canavan, Dennis
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)


Cant, R. B.
Ford, Ben
Lever, Rt Hon Harold


Carmichael, Neil
Forrester, John
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)


Carson, John
Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)
Lipton, Marcus


Carter, Ray
Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)
Litterick, Tom


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Freeson, Reginald
Lomas, Kenneth


Cartwright, John
Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Loyden, Eddie


Castle, Rt Hon Barbara
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Luard, Evan


Clemitson, Ivor
George, Bruce
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Gilbert, Dr John
Mabon, Dr J. Dickson


Cohen, Stanley
Ginsburg, David
McCartney, Hugh


Coleman, Donald
Golding, John
McCusker, H.


Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
Gould, Bryan
McElhone, Frank


Concannon, J. D.
Gourlay, Harry
MacFarquhar, Roderick


Conlan, Bernard
Graham, Ted
McGuire, Michael (Ince)


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Mackenzie, Gregor


Corbett, Robin
Grant, John (Islington C)
Mackintosh, John P.


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Grocott, Bruce
Maclennan, Robert


Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)


Cronin, John
Hardy, Peter
McNamara, Kevin


Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Madden, Max


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
Hart, Rt Hon Judith
Magee, Bryan


Cryer, Bob
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Maguire, Frank (Fermanagh)


Cunningham, G. (Islington S)
Hatton, Frank
Mahon, Simon


Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh)
Hayman, Mrs Helene
Mallalleu, J. P. W.


Dalyell, Tarn
Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Marks, Kenneth







Marquand, David
Price, William (Rugby)
Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)


Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Radice, Giles
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)


Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Richardson, Miss Jo
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Maynard, Miss Joan
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)


Meacher, Michael
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)
Tierney, Sydney


Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Robertson, John (Paisley)
Tinn, James


Mendelson, John
Robinson, Geoffrey
Tomlinson, John


Mikardo, Ian
Roderick, Caerwyn
Tomney, Frank


Millan, Bruce
Rodgers, George (Chorley)
Torney, Tom


Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Tuck, Raphael


Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)
Rooker, J. W.
Urwin, T. W.


Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)
Roper, John
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Molloy, William
Rose, Paul B.
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)


Molyneaux, James
Ross, Rt. Hon W. (Kilmarnock)
Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)


Moonman, Eric
Ross, William (Londonderry)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Morris, Alfred (Wythenehawe)
Rowlands, Ted
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Sandelson, Neville
Ward, Michael


Morris, Rt Hon J.(Aberavon)
Sedgemore, Brian
Watkins, David


Moyle, Roland
Selby, Harry
Watkinson, John


Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)
Weetch, Ken


Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)
Weltzman, David




Wellbeloved, James


Newens, Stanley
Shore, Rt Hon Peter
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Noble, Mike
Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)
White, James (Pollok)


Oakes, Gordon
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)
Whitehead, Phillip


Ogden, Eric
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)
Whitlock, William


O'Halloran, Michael
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)
Wigley, Dafydd


Orbach, Maurice
Sillars, James
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Silverman, Julius
Williams, Alan (Swansea W)


Ovenden, John
Skinner, Dennis
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)


Owen, Dr David
Small, William
Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)


Padley, Walter
Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)
Williams, Sir Thomas


Palmer, Arthur
Snape, Peter
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Park, George
Spearing, Nigel
Wilson, Rt Hon H. (Huyton)


Parker, John
Spriggs, Leslie
Wilson, William (Coventry SE)


Parry, Robert
Stallard, A. W.
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Pavitt, Laurie
Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)
Woodall, Alec


Peart, Rt Hon Fred
Stoddart, David
Woof, Robert


Pendry, Tom
Stonehouse, Rt Hon John
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Perry, Ernest
Stott, Roger
Young, David (Bolton E)


Phipps, Dr Colin
Strang, Gavin



Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch
Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Prentice, Rt Hon Reg
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley
Mr. Joseph Harper and


Prescott, John
Swain, Thomas
Mr. James Hamilton.


Price, C. (Lewisham W)
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

Question accordingly negatived.

AIRCRAFT AND SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRIES BILL

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to the Order of the House this day,

That the Order for consideration of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, as amended in the Standing Committee, be discharged, and that the Bill be re-committted to a Select Committee.—[Mrs. Thatcher.]

The House divided: Ayes 297, Noes 311.

Division No. 204.]
AYES
[10.15 p.m.


Adley, Robert
Bradford, Rev Robert
Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)


Aitken, Jonathan
Braine, Sir Bernard
Cope, John


Alison, Michael
Brittan, Leon
Cordle, John H.


Amery, Rt Hon Julian
Brocklebank-Fowler, C.
Cormack, Patrick


Arnold, Tom
Brotherton, Michael
Corrie, John


Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Costain, A. P.


Awdry, Daniel
Bryan, Sir Paul
Craig, Rt Hon W. (Belfast E)


Baker, Kenneth
Buchanan-Smith, Alick
Critchley, Julian


Banks, Robert
Buck, Antony
Crouch, David


Beith, A. J.
Budgen, Nick
Crowder, F. P.


Bell, Ronald
Bulmer, Esmond
Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Burden, F. A.
Dean, Paul (N Somerset)


Bennett, Dr Reginald (Fareham)
Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Dodsworth, Geoffrey


Benyon, W.
Carlisle, Mark
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James


Berry, Hon Anthony
Carson, John
Drayson, Burnaby


Biffen, John
Chalker, Mrs Lynda
du Cann, Rt Hon Edward


Biggs-Davison, John
Channon, Paul
Dunlop, John


Blaker, Peter
Churchill, W. S.
Durant, Tony


Body, Richard
Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Dykes, Hugh


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Clark, William (Croydon S)
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John


Bottomley, Peter
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)


Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)
Clegg, Walter
Elliott, Sir William


Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)
Cockcroft, John
Eyre, Reginald




Fairbairn, Nicholas
Kitson, Sir Timothy
Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)


Fairgrieve, Russell
Knight, Mrs Jill
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Farr, John
Knox, David
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Fall, Anthony
Lamont, Norman
Ridsdale, Julian


Finsberg, Geoffrey
Lane, David
Rifkind, Malcolm


Fisher, Sir Nigel
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Rippon, Rt. Hon Geoffrey


Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N)
Latham, Michael (Melton)
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Lawrence, Ivan
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Fookes, Miss Janet
Lawson, Nigel
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)


Forman, Nigel
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Ross, William (Londonderry)


Fox, Marcus
Lloyd, Ian
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)
Loveridge, John
Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)


Freud, Clement
Luce, Richard
Royle, Sir Anthony


Fry, Peter
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Sainsbury, Tim


Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.
McCrindle, Robert
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Gardiner, George (Reigate)
McCusker, H.
Scott, Nicholas


Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)
Macfarlane, Neil
Scott-Hopkins, James


Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)
MacGregor, John
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)
Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Glyn, Dr Alan
McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)
Shelton, William (Streatham)


Godber, Rt Hon Joseph
McNair-Wilson. P. (New Forest)
Shepherd, Colin


Goodhart, Philip
Madel, David
Shersby, Michael


Goodhew, Victor
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Silvester, Fred


Goodlad, Alastair
Marten, Neil
Sims, Roger


Gorst, John
Mates, Michael
Sinclair, Sir George


Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Mather, Carol
Skeet, T. H. H.


Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)
Maude, Angus
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)


Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald
Smith, Dudley (Warwick)


Gray, Hamish
Mawby, Ray
Speed, Keith


Grieve, Percy
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Spence, John


Griffiths, Eldon
Mayhew, Patrick
Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)


Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)


Grist, Ian
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Sproat, Iain


Grylls, Michael
Mills, Peter
Stainton, Keith


Hall, Sir John
Miscampbell, Norman
Stanbrook, Ivor


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Stanley, John


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Moate, Roger
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Hampson, Dr Keith
Molyneaux, James
Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)


Hannam, John
Monro, Hector
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)
Montgomery, Fergus
Stokes, John


Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss
Moore, John (Croydon C)
Stonehouse, Rt Hon John


Hastings, Stephen
More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Stradling Thomas, J.


Havers, Sir Michael
Morgan, Geraint
Tapsell, Peter


Hawkins, Paul
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral
Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)


Hayhoe, Barney
Morris, Michael (Northampton S)
Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)


Heath, Rt Hon Edward
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Tebbit, Norman


Heseltine, Michael
Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)
Temple-Morris, Peter


Hicks, Robert
Mudd, David
Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret


Higgins, Terence L.
Neave, Airey
Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)


Holland, Philip
Nelson, Anthony
Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)


Hooson, Emlyn
Neubert, Michael
Townsend, Cyril D.


Hordern, Peter
Newton, Tony
Trotter, Neville


Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Normanton, Tom
Tugendhat, Christopher


Howell, David (Guildford)
Nott, John
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)
Onslow, Cranley
Vaughan, Dr Gerard


Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Oppenheim, Mrs Sally
Viggers, Peter


Hunt, David (Wirral)
Osborn, John
Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)


Hunt, John

Wakeham John


Hurd, Douglas
Page, John (Harrow West)
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)


Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)
Paisley, Rev Ian
Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek


James, David
Pardoe, John
Wall, Patrick


Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd &amp; W'df'd)
Pattle, Geoffrey
Walters, Dennis


Jessel, Toby
Penhaligon, David
Warren, Kenneth


Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)
Percival, Ian
Weatherill, Bernard


Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Peyton, Rt Hon John
Wells, John


Jones, Arthur (Daventry)
Pink, R. Bonner
Whitelaw, Rt Hon William


Jopling, Michael
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch
Wiggin, Jerry


Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Winterton, Nicholas


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Prior, Rt Hon James
Wood, Rt Hon Richard


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)


Kershaw, Anthony
Raison, Timothy
Younger, Hon George


Kilfedder, James
Rathbone, Tim



Kimball, Marcus
Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


King, Evelyn (South Dorset)
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)
Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and


King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Mr. Cecil Parkinson.


Kirk, Sir Peter
Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)





NOES


Abse, Leo
Armstrong, Ernest
Atkinson, Norman


Allaun, Frank
Ashley, Jack
Bagier, Gordon A. T.


Anderson, Donald
Ashton, Joe
Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)


Archer, Peter
Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)
Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)







Bates, Alf
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Maguire, Frank (Fermanagh)


Bean, R. E.
Ford, Ben
Mahon, Simon


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Forrester, John
Mallalleu, J. P. W.


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)
Marks, Kenneth


Bidwell, Sydney
Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)
Marquand, David


Bishop, E. S.
Freeson, Reginald
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)


Boardman, H.
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Mason, Rt Hon Roy


Booth, Rt Hon Albert
George, Bruce
Maynard, Miss Joan


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Gilbert, Dr John
Meacher, Michael


Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur
Ginsburg, David
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert


Boyden, James (Bish Auck)
Golding, John
Mendelson, John


Bradley, Tom
Gould, Bryan
Mikardo, Ian


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Gourlay, Harry
Millan, Bruce


Broughton, Sir Alfred
Graham, Ted
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Grant, John (Islington C)
Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)


Brown, Ronald (Hackney S)
Grocott, Bruce
Molloy, William


Buchan, Norman
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)
Moonman, Eric


Buchanan, Richard
Hardy, Peter
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)


Callaghan, Rt Hon J. (Cardiff SE)
Hart, Rt Hon Judith
Morris, Rt Hon J.(Aberavon)


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Moyle, Roland


Campbell, Ian
Hatton, Frank
Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick


Canavan, Dennis
Hayman, Mrs Helene
Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King


Cant, R. B.
Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Newens, Stanley


Carmichael, Neil
Heffer, Eric S.
Noble, Mike


Carter, Ray
Hooley, Frank
Oakes, Gordon


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Horam, John
Ogden, Eric


Cartwright, John
Howell, Rt Hon Denis
O'Halloran, Michael


Castle, Rt Hon Barbara
Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)
Orbach, Maurice


Clemitson, Ivor
Huckfield, Les
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)
Ovenden, John


Cohen, Stanley
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Owen, Dr David


Coleman, Donald
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Padley, Walter


Colquhoun, Ms Maureen
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Palmer, Arthur


Concannon, J. D.
Hunter, Adam
Park, George


Conlan, Bernard
Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)
Parker, John


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)
Parry, Robert


Corbett, Robin
Jaskson, Colin (Brighouse)
Pavitt, Laurie


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Peart, Rt Hon Fred


Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)
Janner, Greville
Pendry, Tom


Crawshaw, Richard
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Perry, Ernest


Cronin, John
Jeger, Mrs Lena
Phipps, Dr Colin


Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Prentice, Rt Hon Reg


Crowther, Stan (Rotherham)
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Prescott, John


Cryer, Bob
John, Brynmor
Price, C. (Lewisham W)


Cunningham, G. (Islington S)
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Price, William (Rugby)


Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh)
Johnson, Walter (Derby S)
Radice, Giles


Dalyell, Tam
Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)


Davidson, Arthur
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Richardson Miss Jo


Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)
Judd, Frank
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)
Kaufman, Gerald
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Kelley, Richard
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Kerr, Russell
Robinson, Geoffrey


Deakins, Eric
Kilroy-Silk, Robert
Roderick, Caerwyn


Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Kinnock, Neil
Rodgers, George (Chorley)


de Freitas, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Lambie, David
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Dell, Rt Hon Edmund
Lamborn, Harry
Rooker, J. W.


Dempsey, James
Lamond, James
Roper, John


Doig, Peter
Latham, Arthur (Paddington)
Rose, Paul B,


Dormand, J. D.
Leadbitter, Ted
Ross, Rt. Hon W. (Kilmarnock)


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Lee, John
Rowlands, Ted


Duffy, A. E. P.
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Sandelson, Neville


Dunn, James A.
Lever, Rt Hon Harold
Sedgemore, Brian


Dunnett, Jack
Lewis, Arthur (Newham N)
Selby, Harry


Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)


Eadie, Alex
Lipton, Marcus
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)


Edge, Geoff
Litterick, Tom
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
Lomas, Kenneth
Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Loyden, Eddie
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Luard, Evan
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


English, Michael
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Ennals, David
Mabon, Dr J. Dickson
Sillars, James


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
McCartney, Hugh
Silverman, Julius


Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
McElhone, Frank
Skinner, Dennis


Evans, John (Newton)
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Small, William


Ewing, Harry (Stirling)
McGuire, Michael (Ince)
Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)


Faulds, Andrew
Mackenzie, Gregor
Snape, Peter


Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.
Mackintosh, John P.
Spearing, Nigel


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Maclennan, Robert
Spriggs, Leslie


Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)
Stallard, A. W.


Flannery, Martin
McNamara, Kevin
Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Madden, Max
Stoddart, David


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Magee, Bryan
Stott, Roger







Strang, Gavin
Varlay, Rt Hon Eric G.
Williams, Alan (Swansea W)


Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)


Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley
Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'drw'd)
Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)


Swain, Thomas
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Williams, Sir Thomas


Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)
Ward, Michael
Wilson, Rt Hon H. (Huyton)


Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)
Watkins, David
Wilson, William (Coventry SE)


Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)
Watkinson, John
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Thorne, Stan (Preston South)
We etch, Ken
Woodall, Alec


Tierney, Sydney
Weitzman, David
Woof, Robert


Tinn, James
Wellbeloved, James
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Tomilnson, John
White, Frank R. (Bury)
Young, David (Bolton E)


Tomney, Frank
White, James (Pollok)



Torney, Tom
Whitehead, Phillip
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Tuck, Raphael
Whitlock, William
Mr. Joseph Harper and


Urwin, T. W.
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick
Mr. James Hamilton.

Question accordingly negatived.

IRON CASTING INDUSTRY (SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH LEVIES)

10.31 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Les Huckfield): I beg to move,
That the Iron Casting Industry (Scientific Research Levy) (Amendment) Order 1976, a draft of which was laid before this House on 8th June, be approved.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I will allow two minutes for the Chamber to empty of those hon. Members who wish to leave.

Mr. Huckfield: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The purpose of the Order, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry proposes to make under Section 9 of the Industrial Organisation and Development Act 1947, is to amend the Iron Casting Industry (Scientific Research Levy) Order 1971 so as to increase the income of the British Cast Iron Research Association. The existing Order imposes a levy on the iron casting industry to finance scientific research carried out by the association. The proceeds of the levy will continue to be collected by my right hon. Friend and then released against the association's expenditure on scientific research.
The performance of the iron foundry industry is crucial to the success of British manufacturing industry generally. Iron castings are used in nearly all industries, and the availability of castings in the right quantity, at the right quality and price, is of importance to all the consuming industries and to the economy generally. It is for these reasons that ferrous foundries were one of the areas selected for attention as part of the Government's industrial strategy and were also provided with a scheme of assistance under the Industry Act 1972.
The activities of the British Cast Iron Research Association must be seen against the background of the iron foundry industry. Many companies are small and unable to support their own research activities. But they are nevertheless of vital importance to their customer industries. The British Cast Iron Research Association provides the whole of the iron castings industry with a wide range of services

which include general scientific research, contract research, and consultancy and advisory services. An increase in the association's income is required merely to enable it to maintain its existing programme of work.
Apart from that, recent legislation on environmental and health and safety matters will impose significant additional requirements on the industry, and the association has therefore embarked upon an increased programme of work in these fields to help the industry to meet in the best practicable way the future demands placed upon it.
The association has, of course, examined its expenditure very closely, and is seeking economies wherever possible. It is also making every effort to increase receipts from sources other than the levy. It is quite clear, however, that unless the levy is increased the association will have to cut back all parts of its planned programme of work, and the whole industry will be placed at a further disadvantage.
The new Order proposes an increase in the levy on emoluments from 0·14 per cent. to 0·15 per cent., and in the levy on production from 4p to 11p per tonne. It is estimated that the annual yield of the increased levy will be about £660,000 compared with the present yield of about £420,000. The Order also makes provision for the rate of levy per tonne to be automatically adjusted annually. It is proposed to do this by linking the tonnage levy to the index of wholesale castings prices published by my Department in Trade and Industry.
In preparing the draft order, we have consulted representatives both of the industry and of the workers in it and have received a wide measure of support for the proposals, which I invite hon. Members to support.

10.37 p.m.

Mr. Michael Marshall: I thank the Under-Secretary for the way in which he has introduced the Order. He has given us a clear statement of the situation, and because of our understanding of the industry's thinking we do not seek to oppose it. But we would like the Minister to tell us precisely what are the views of the industry and of the Department about the present situation. I accept that this could involve questions


which the Minister might find it difficult to answer in full. Perhaps he will write to me if any matters arise which are outside his knowledge.
The hon. Gentleman said that there was general satisfaction within the industry. I take that to mean among the management and on the shop floor. It is important to relate the Order to the general issue of the industry's future and its relationship with the Government. The iron castings industry is an important part of the industrial scene. The preeminence of the industry's technology is not widely understood in the House or outside. One has only to highlight the construction of tunnel segments and the way in which the construction of underground railways was pioneered in this country to recognise the importance of the industry. It has, therefore, a number of opportunities in this country and for exporting.
It would be helpful for the Minister to say more about how the industry stands and the way in which its research and development is likely to impinge on its future activities. The background information made available from the Department of Industry refers to research in terms of the environment, health and safety, but it does not seem to touch on research and development in the pure industrial sense. Any information which the Minister can give about the way in which the broad activity of research and development is carried out within those main headings will help our understanding.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the satisfaction of the industry as a whole about the proposed arrangements. Are there any differences of view within the industry? Any of us who have had knowledge of the industry in the past must recognise that there are large and small iron foundries and that a levy based on levels of employment and levels of output could in some cases work to the disadvantage of some of the small companies in the industry, which may sometimes feel that they are in a less flexible position than some of the larger producers.
What assessment has the Department made of the value of work which has been undertaken by the British Cast Iron Research Association? How far does this work fit into the Government's

thinking in terms of their overall relationship with the industry, which we see at its most obvious in the ferrous foundries scheme.
Finally, will the Minister comment on the NEDC review of the industry? Presumably that review will have its impact on research and development, as indeed it will on many other areas within the industry.

10.42 p.m.

Mr. Les Huckfield: I shall do my best to reply to some of the very important points that the hon. Member for Arundel (Mr. Marshall) has raised. If I cannot succeed in answering all of them, I shall write to the hon. Gentleman giving information on the points I have not answered.
The hon. Gentleman asked particularly about the reactions of the industry and the consultations that my Department has had. We have been through a very wide-ranging series of consultations. We have been in touch with the Council of Iron Foundry Associations, the British Iron-founders Association, the British Cast Iron Research Association, the British Steel Corporation and the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions. I hope the hon. Gentleman will recognise that most of those have said that they support this levy increase and its purposes.
Apart from that, I think the hon. Gentleman recognises that there are some 40 different members of the association's governing council, and they have their views and their ways in which they can express their views. They represent a very wide strand of opinion and interest within this part of the industry.

Mr. Michael Marshall: I do not wish to be difficult about this, but the Under-Secretary mentioned that most of the related outside organisations were in favour of the levy. I want to be quite clear. Is the hon. Gentleman reflecting a majority view or saying that overall there has been no voice of dissent?

Mr. Huckfield: If the hon. Gentleman has done some research, he may have discovered for himself that the British Steel Corporation was in some doubt over this increase, but has, with the other participants and members, accepted it.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the activities of the association and what the


money would be used for. As he probably knows, the association serves the iron-founding industry as a centre for research, development, technical advice and information. Its investigations and advisory services cover the whole field of iron castings production, including raw materials, production processes, plant and equipment, control and instrumentation, operating economics, working conditions and environmental aspects, applications and service properties of iron castings. That is a fairly wide range. As I said, the association is up to date on these activities continuously, particularly in the light of some of the recent health and safety at work and environmental legislation.
The hon. Gentleman asked me about differences of view within the foundry industry. He knows that foundries are of diverse size. I have told him that the British Steel Corporation initially had doubts but, of course, has now accepted the increase.
As to the question of the little NEDC review, this was very much borne in mind when my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Chancellor of the Exchequer decided to make the ferrous foundries industry one of the selected areas of industry to which we wanted to give particular attention. Many of the developments in the scheme, which has now been going for some time—the closing date for applications will be the end of this year—were inaugurated after the findings of the NEDC report were received.
The marrying or harmonising efforts of the association and the ferrous foundries scheme are carried out by the close contact that the Department maintains with the association and in the way in which my Department has been monitoring applications and the grants which it has been making under the scheme. I assure the hon. Member that close contact is being maintained between the research association's activities and the possibilities under the ferrous foundries scheme.
I have tried to answer some of the hon. Member's questions. I hope that if he has others he will not hesitate to get in touch with me now or at some other time. The association is doing valuable work. It needs an increase in the levy

to continue its existing work and to do much important work in future.

Mr. Michael Marshall: The Minister has tried to answer a number of my points, but he has reminded me of another question. I hope that he can answer it briefly. Is any work being done in the EEC with a view to cooperative research? This seems to be a direction in which the association might wish to move into broader areas to improve unit costs.

Mr. Huckfield: Of course, the association is anxious to look towards any avenue which may produce operating economies. It is an association which gets its income not solely from levy but from consultancy services also. I shall look in greater detail at the point about potential economies by co-operation on a European basis and write to the hon. Gentleman.
The increase in levy is necessary to enable the association both to continue its important activities and to extend its scope and keep abreast of modern legislation and its future effects for the ferrous foundry.
Having said that, I hope that the hon. Member and his hon. Friends will feel able to accept the Order.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Iron Casting Industry (Scientific Research Levy) (Amendment) Order 1976, draft of which was laid before this House on 8th June, be approved.

HORTICULTURE CAPITAL GRANT (VARIATION) SCHEME

10.49 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Gavin Strang): I beg to move,
That the Horticulture Capital Grant (Variation) Scheme 1976 (S.I., 1976, No. 762), a copy of which was laid before this House on 26th May, he approved.
Hon. Members will know that the Horticulture Capital Grant Scheme is an important aspect of the Government's policy of encouraging the horticulture industry to improve productivity by increasing its efficiency. The industry also benefits from the advice and research efforts of the advisory services of the agricultural Departments, which have the same objectives as the capital grant scheme.
The variation scheme will change the principal scheme in three main ways and in several relatively minor ones. These three main changes are contained in the schedule.
The first of these is the proposal that the provision, replacement or improvement of the stakes and wirework used by fruit growers to support their crops should be eligible for a grant of 15 per cent. Raspberries are the most important crop in this group, although growers of loganberries and blackberries would also benefit from the new arrangements. Some 80 per cent. of the raspberry crop is grown in Scotland.
The second main change is the extension of the existing arrangements for water supply to the provision of water supply to open fields. This is a logical extension, since irrigation equipment at the point of delivery is already eligible for a grant of 15 per cent. It is proposed that fixed—permanent—pipelines would now be eligible for a grant of 25 per cent.
Thirdly, it is proposed to increase the flexibility with which the scheme can be administered. The very detailed list of eligible plant and equipment in Schedule 1 of the principal scheme would be replaced by more general headings. It is not intended that this should lead to any extension of grant to plant and equipment used in areas other than those grant-aided at present. However, the removal of these specific references to equipment will avoid any unnecessary restriction on the grant aiding of newly developed machinery.
The remaining changes to the principal scheme are of relatively minor importance, and are intended to bring it into line with changes recently made to the other capital grant schemes. These involve an increase in the limit of expenditure, metrication of the eligibility criteria, the ending of grants for hedge grubbing as a separate operation, provision for the receipt of claims when the scheme ends, and a change in the definition of labour unit.
The amendments I have described will enable the Horticulture Capital Grant Scheme to increase its effectiveness. The scheme is of considerable benefit to growers, and I am sure they will welcome these changes.

10.52 p.m.

Mr. A. P. Costain: We welcome the scheme and thank the Minister for his explanation. There are, however, one or two items on which we should be grateful to have further details.
I am informed by the National Farmers' Union that under the old scheme in 1973 there was a minimum qualifying expenditure before grants could be made. I understand that it was £200. Will the Minister confirm this, and may we have his assurance that the figure will not be altered or raised?
There is a great deal of disappointment in the industry that the Minister has not taken the opportunity provided by the scheme to give some aid in cases where glasshouses have been damaged by storms.
The NFU says that the scheme is not flexible enough for new technical achievements. It differs from the 1973 scheme in some respects, particularly in regard to taking account of new technical development. The Minister has already referred to this. Another example is the fact that the scheme has extended the use of plastics by not being so restrictive as the former scheme.
Schedule 1 of the 1973 scheme provided for replacement or improvement of systems for disposal of sewage effluent and waste. The new scheme seems to restrict this only to disposal from buildings. Does the Department appreciate that there is a need for drainage from hard standings? The Ministry has made special reference to giving water supply to fields. Surely it should equally make provision for drainage from fields.
Paragraph 16(v) of Schedule 1 has been amended as compared with the old paragraph 16(i), in that descriptions of plant have been left out. The Minister made special reference to the fact that it did not provide any further facilities. I was always taught that when the description of articles in a contract was removed it widened the scope. The Minister mentioned innovations, but we should like to be assured that there is not a trick in this that we have failed to pick up, and that all the facilities provided in the past will be provided under this scheme.
The scheme seems to indicate, as the earlier one did, that there should be no


grant for supply to dwelling-houses. Surely there must be cases in which a new electric supply is given to a farm and a dwelling-house is affected. May we be told how the costs of bringing the mains to the farm and the dwelling-house are to be apportioned?
With those few remarks, I welcome the scheme and hope that the Minister will provide an explanation of the points that I have mentioned.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. Richard Body: In view of what has been said from both sides of the House, I seek to dispel the notion that the scheme has the total and universal approval of horticulturists. Not every horticulturist is gasping for more money from the taxpayer's purse. Well-established horticulturists are fearful that as a result of some of the items in the scheme there will be an expansion of horticulture in areas that are not well suited to it, in terms of soil and climate.
There is evidence that an appreciable number of farmers are contemplating a move over to horticulture. I do not mean that they will abandon their farms and change over entirely to horticulture, but they may move over partly. Some farmers to whom I have spoken recently are feeling the pinch as a result of inflation, and think that it might be preferable to produce a horticultural crop. Meat producers are apprehensive about the falling demand for meat, and dairy farmers have their own specific problems. Farmers in those categories are showing a greater interest in horticultural crops, especially vegetables.
Under the scheme a 25 per cent. grant for the supply of water in open fields will be available. Well-established vegetable growers will not be queuing up for that grant. Those who will be interested in it are people who have up to now been concerned with straight farming in, for example, Worcestershire and Herefordshire, where there is growing interest in vegetable crops. They will be entitled to apply and, because generous grants are available, they will be induced to go into vegetable production.
I hope that the Ministry understands that an increased production of between 5 per cent. and 10 per cent. of certain

vegetable crops may have a devastating effect upon the market, and prices can fall within a few days. That has happened with cauliflowers. If areas that do not normally produce cauliflowers suddenly send them to the London or Birmingham market the price comes down so dramatically that the people who regularly supply the markets suffer a loss.
Although I am not imploring my hon. Friends to divide the House on this issue, I hope that the Minister will not allow the kindly, good-natured and normally well-informed people in the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service to persuade farmers in areas in which vegetable growing is not usual to take advantage of the grants to switch over from, for example, cereal growing.
One hopes that the farming Press will not make a great song and dance about these grants, thus persuading people to go into these branches of horticulture and, in so doing, cause hardship to those who are traditionally in this market and dependent on a fairly stable level of production.

11.1 p.m.

Mr. Robert Banks: I shall be brief. I endorse the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone (Mr. Costain), and express a cautious welcome to this measure. It is a relief that the Government are instigating improvements, rather than creating damage or disappointment, which we have come to expect recently.
This instrument is something of a mystery, as it raises some uncertainties. The major item is the replacement of paragraphs 16 to 20 of Schedule 1 in the 1973 scheme by the new details set out in paragraphs 16 to 20 in the new schedule. Whereas the old schedule set out in some detail—one might say explicit detail—the lists of plant and equipment in respect of which grant may be paid, the new schedule details are painted with a broader brush. This raises a challenge to "spot the difference".
In the 1973 scheme the Schedule 1 paragraph 16 item went to 10 lines, listing the equipment qualifying for grant. In the new schedule it amounts to only a couple of lines. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will explain where the difference, if any, lies between the paragraphs in the old and new instruments.
This instrument deletes one of the facilities for which grant is paid—namely, the removal of hedges. Many people will welcome this. The great rush of agriculturists generally to remove hedges has had a grave effect on the structure of soil, and has caused difficulties with soil blowing away because the hedges are not there. It also causes difficulties for motorists who are faced with snow drifts in winter because the hedges are not there to hold back the snow. It is regrettable to consider the number of hedges that have been rooted out and done away with in the last three or four years. The time may come when the answer is to instigate a grant for replacing the hedges that have been destroyed. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will take this advice to the Minister and take on board the point that this should apply in agriculture generally.
The explanatory notes on the back of the instrument regrettably do not mention the continuation of grant for installation, reconstruction, alteration or improvement to heating. This will be particularly welcomed. Horticulturists are looking for cheaper means of providing heat for greenhouses, and it may be possible for oil machines to be converted to calor gas or natural gas as a means of economy. I hope that under the instrument, the installation of lighting is fully taken account of. Tomato and flower growers use artificial light as a means of heating as well, so I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will clarify this one point, which will be helpful.
Schedule 1 item 16 (vii), which refers to the equipment and containers for growing horticultural products, raises the question whether the new type of plastic container bags which contain a compost mixture for tomato plants and others would be covered by this item.
At this time of drought the most important consideration is the provision of water. Some holdings have a natural supply of water. Do the grant schemes envisaged also provide for the storage of water? There are cases in which horticulturists would be able to store a reasonable quantity of water, which in the present drought conditions would be a wise and useful precaution. Would deep-bore extraction qualify for the grant?
In the last resort, only if the industry is profitable will people invest in it and take advantage of the grants. The grants are useful to stimulate investment, but the profits must be there to give a sufficient return on capital.
I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to bring confidence to the industry. I hope that he will consider the industry in the long term. The grant scheme is excellent, and the rate of grant can be increased, but in these times of stringent economic control there must be a close relationship between the expansion that can be achieved by the grants and the money that is available from Government resources.
It is the housewife who benefits from greater productivity and efficiency, but we must keep a watch on unfair competition from European countries, such as Holland. Dutch producers have had the advantage of lower oil prices in the past, and that has put home produce in an unfavourable position, by comparison. I hope that tonight the Minister will commit the Government to the level of horticultural expansion that they wish to see.

11.8 p.m.

Mr. Strang: I am glad that the scheme has been welcomed by the Opposition. The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) asked whether the £200 minimum investment limit would be altered. It will not be altered by the scheme, but discussions are taking place with the NFU on this point.
The replacement of the specific detailed list of headings of plant eligible for grant with a more generalised heading is not a trick. The position is as I described it in my opening speech.
Hon. Members have raised a number of technical and specialised points. It would be appropriate to write to them on such narrow questions as the eligibility of grant. The hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body), whose views I know well, takes a different attitude on the question of grant. It is a highly defensible attitude, in many respects. However, I believe that in this instance the Government have the balance right, and I am glad that the Opposition agree.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Horticulture Capital Grant (Variation) Scheme 1976 (S.I., 1976, No. 762), a copy of which was laid before this House on 26th May, be approved.

DRUMBRAE COMMUNITY CENTRE

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Pendry.]

11.9 p.m.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I wish to put the case for the residents who reside in Drumbrae, which is an area between Corstorphine and Barnton and Cramond, near Edinburgh airport. I have two letters in my hand signed by Scottish Office Ministers, one of which gives an undertaking to the residents of Drumbrae and the other of which withdraws that undertaking. The first letter, dated 17th May 1975, from the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes)—then Under-Secretary of State for Scotland—said:
I am writing to tell you that we shall shortly be informing all Education Authorities of their allocations of investment for new social and recreational projects in 1975/76 and you will be pleased to know that the allocation to Edinburgh Education Authority will include an allowance for the Drumbrae Community Centre.
Imagine my amazement when I received a second letter on 5th May 1976 from the present Under-Secretary of State—the hon. Member for Glasgow, Queen's Park (Mr. McElhone)—saying:
The review of social and recreational projects proposed for 1976/77 has now been completed.…I am afraid, however, that it has not been possible to make an allocation to Lothian Regional Council for the proposed community centre at Drumbrae.
The Minister will doubtless argue that, at a time of very severe financial stringency, he does not feel bound by the undertakings of another Minister. But the Government were overspending and overborrowing more than a year ago, when the original undertaking was given. Public expenditure cuts were necessary then, just as they are today. It should not be asking too much of any Minister with a sense of responsibility to see 12 to 15 months ahead.
However, it appears that the Government have been operating through guess-

work, and many constituents in Drumbrae feel they have been seriously let down by the Government, who cannot fulfil the undertaking they gave. When an undertaking is made by a Government to a community, it raises hopes and expectations. The community plans ahead on the basis of the undertaking. Residents naturally expect that a Government will keep their word. They consider that no responsible Government would give an undertaking when they had not thought through the implications and were not in a position to honour the undertaking.
If a private individual gives an undertaking and fails to fulfil it, he may be liable for damages under an action for breach of contract. Why should the Government be allowed to act less responsibly than a private individual? I ask the Government to clarify their future intentions in regard to this project and give an assurance that the venture has merely been postponed.
I am glad to see my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor) here tonight. I hope that if there are a few minutes available and he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he will state the views of the Conservative Party in Scotland on this matter.
The case for a community centre in Drumbrae was accepted as long ago as March 1973 by the education committee of the Edinburgh Town Council, and the essence of that case rests on two grounds.
First, there are no adequate facilities in Drumbrae, apart from the school, which is constantly over-subscribed. As well as the Drumbrae Residents Association, under the able leadership of Mr. Graham Burns, there are about 70 groups in the area, including a large number of youth and other representative organisations. These groups fall into four categories.
For the very young, there are playgroups. The youth and supporting organisations include 13 packs of Brownies, 10 companies of Guides, two groups of Ranger Guides, seven Cub Scout packs, five Scout troops, one Venture Scout unit, three boys' clubs, two girls' clubs, two youth clubs and one Boys' Brigade. In support, there are sporting clubs, including badminton, karate and swimming. There are also drama and dance clubs, in which young people take part. The third group


includes men's clubs and women's clubs. Lastly, there are the clubs for senior citizens.
Many of these organisations have to keep a waiting list, because in many cases the demand for membership considerably exceeds the facilities available. Drumbrae Residents Association has to turn away members because the school accommodation that they use cannot cope with the large numbers who wish to take part in the association's activities.
The second part of the case for a new centre is that there is no central focal point in Drumbrae. Clubs have to meet at as many as four locations, and the result is that they find it almost impossible to share resources—because of the lack of storage and other facilities—and very hard to develop programmes.
If the Lothian Regional Council puts to the Government next year that its first priority is a community centre at Drumbrae, will the Government fulfil their previous undertaking? Very recently the Lothian Regional Council asked the Minister for an additional allocation. As the Conservative Party supports public expenditure cuts, I could not support that application, but I feel able to support the claim that this project should receive the necessary assistance next year when it comes up for consideration by the Government. The Lothian Regional Council considers that this project should receive more priority than any other project in the social and recreational programme. Will the Minister give an assurance to the organisations and residents in Drumbrae? Will he say that the Government will be prepared to fulfil their undertakings in due course?

11.16 p.m.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) for giving me the opportunity of saying a few words on this important subject. I think that the Minister will agree that my hon. Friend could not have done more to represent the views and feelings of his constituents on the important issue of the community centre at Drumbrae. He has brought the matter to the fore on behalf of his constituents. We can understand the sense of outrage but he and

the local people feel at being let down. I think that the Minister must agree that this is not just one of the many cases put before him of Members asking for something for their area. I think he will accept that this is a special case.
A pledge was given by the Government, and the pledge has apparently been abandoned. I ask the hon. Gentleman three questions. First, in view of the special situation of the pledge being given, will he be willing as soon as possible to visit Drumbrae to assess the situation for himself? Secondly, is he able to make any pledge about giving priority to the scheme, in view of the pledge that was given previously by his predecessor? Thirdly, will he tell the House how, after tonight's vote, he can justify spending £300 million on more nationalisation, which will mean £300 million less to spend on important social ventures like the Drumbrae community centre?
I can tell my hon. Friend that when once again we have a Conservative Government we shall spend a lot less money on non-essentials and more money on essentials such as the important community centre at Drumbrae. During the golden years of the Conservative Administration, which I know the Minister will remember, so much was done for Scotland and its people. We achieved that record because we spent money on things that mattered and did not waste it on things that caused damage. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will be able to give my hon. Friend a good answer tonight, bearing in mind the valiant way in which he has fought for his constituents and their interests.

11.18 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Frank McElhone): I do not disagree for a moment with the view expressed by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor) about the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), even though he happens to represent a different party from my own.
I welcome the opportunity to make clear the Scottish Office position in regard to the proposed Drumbrae community centre. The hon. Gentleman, my predecessors and I have had extensive correspondence about the centre, but


some misunderstanding seems to have arisen and I think it will be helpful if I outline briefly the rôle of Scottish Ministers in regard to it.
Proposals for a community centre at Drumbrae were first put to the Scottish Education Department by Edinburgh Education Authority in August 1973 when it submitted a social and recreational building programme for 1974–77, which proposed that the centre should start in October 1974. As hon. Members will remember, the Conservative Government, in October 1973, introduced a moratorium on new building proposals because of the serious economic position. When this Government took office early in 1974 they found it necessary, in view of the continuing economic difficulties, to confirm the decision of their predecessors to reduce public expenditure in 1974–75. Capital investment on new projects had therefore to be restricted and, as the hon. Member was informed in a letter of 23rd August 1974, it was decided that the limited investment available for social and recreational building should go to facilities being provided as an integral part of schools which were urgently needed and were due to start before 30th June 1975. It was not possible, therefore, to authorise a start on the Drumbrae community centre in 1974–75.
It is not part of our general policy necessarily to give priority to community facilities associated with schools over facilities provided in, for example, freestanding community centres. What matters is the individual needs of individual areas. There are obvious advantages in associating community facilities with schools, such as dual use of the whole school complex by school pupils and the adult community, but there are many areas which already have schools but which lack community facilities. These have to be provided as local circumstances dictate; sometimes attached to a school, sometimes separate.
When we came to consider the social and recreational building programme for 1975–76, we decided not to ask authorities to submit a programme for that year, since there was a considerable backlog of projects from the previous year which had not been authorised to start. We therefore selected from among these pro-

jects those which seemed to us to merit the highest priority and allocated investment accordingly. The allocation to Edinburgh Education Authority included an element in respect of Drumbrae community centre.
We did not, however, require the authorities to accept our order of priorities, and I think it would certainly have been wrong for us to do so. It is important to remember that the reorganisation of local government was about to take effect, and it would clearly have been wrong to have forced the new authorities to accept an order of priorities laid down by their predecessors or by the Government. In order to allow them to develop their own priorities for 1975–76, we gave them discretion to substitute other projects for those referred to in our letters of allocation, provided that the total value of the allocations was not exceeded. Lothian Region Education Authority drew up its own list of projects for 1975–76 and, unfortunately, these did not include the Drumbrae community centre. The authority was free to make this decision, and we did not see fit to interfere.
Now we come to 1976–77, with its persistent economic difficulties. The Drumbrae community centre was among four social and recreational projects submitted by Lothian Regional Council for a start in 1976–77, but because of the severe restraints in capital investment and the need to reserve sufficient investment for the continuance of work on projects which had started prior to 1st April 1976 and had not been completed by that date, only a very limited amount of capital investment was available for new projects. The hon. Gentleman will accept that when projects are started, we are committed to complete them and this uses up a substantial amount of the allocation for that year. We considered very carefully indeed how this could best be allocated and, in the end, we authorised eight new social and recreational projects in the whole of Scotland; two in the Highland Region; one in the Lothian Region; and five in Strathclyde.
In selecting the projects, we had to have special regard to community facilities which form integral parts of badly-needed schools—which would have had to be redesigned if the community facilities were included. If we had left it much later, this would have delayed the


addition of the project of the school and the expenditure would have been heavier. For this reason we authorised Lothian, Strathclyde and the Highland Regions to start community facilities respectively at Howden (Ladywell) High School, Livingston; Kirkhill Senior Secondary School; and Charleston Senior Secondary School, Inverness and Tain Royal Academy. The remaining four projects were community education centres in Strathclyde, our policy being to try first to make provision in areas where, in our view, the social need is greatest. This is a far from easy thing to do. Judgments may differ, but it seemed to us that there were areas where the need was greater than even Drumbrae.
I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Cathcart sitting in at Adjournment debates. I have tried to provide as much information as possible, and I would tell him and his hon. Friend that the areas mentioned for Strathclyde are Cranhill, Viewpark, Uddingston, Dalmuir, Clydebank and Greenock, which is a community wing to a school.
I understand from the Press that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West has accused the Government of not honouring pledges given by my predecessor. He repeated that accusation tonight, referring to the letter of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) of 17th March 1975. I understand from the hon. Gentleman that that letter indicated that my hon. Friend had given a promise that the centre would be started. But in my letter of 31st January this year I said that the authority—the Edinburgh Corporation—was told that it or its successor authority, the regional authority, could substitute other projects for those named in the allocation letter, provided the total value of the allocation was not exceeded.
Lothian Region took over, and decided in its submission to us not to include Drumbrae that year, but included it for consideration this year. It was one of four projects submitted by the Lothians, which gave it a high priority. We had regard to giving the one in Livingston a priority over the hon. Gentleman's, because it was attached to a school, and we gave priority—

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I have received information in writing that the project will receive the Lothian Regional

Council's top priority for next year. Will the Minister honour the undertakings at that stage?

Mr. MeElhone: I have the greatest respect for any hon. Member who looks after his constituency. I willingly say that also about the hon. Member for Cathcart, who is also an excellent constituency Member. I understand their feelings, but I must balance that priority against competing demands from other authorities. No Minister in this difficult period of financial constraint could in all sincerity give an absolute commitment. When the allocations come up again I shall give the proposal the most serious consideration.
I take full account of the cogent way in which the hon. Gentleman advanced his argument, the pressures on the area, and the number of clubs. It is obviously a great community area. I am a great respecter of communities.
I can give only a glimmer of hope, and not a promise. One must keep feeding projects once they are started and go on to finish them. There are many projects all over Scotland. There may be a possibility of some finishing now which were started when the hon. Member for Cathcart was in office. I have not checked the progress of all of them. There is often slippage. There may be an opportunity. I do not want to create any more false dawns—there are too many in this political world. I shall consider the matter. However. I cannot give a total commitment. I do not deny that there is a need for a community centre in that area, but there are similar pressing needs in many of the areas in Strathclyde and Dundee and other parts of the country.
Unfortunately, I must make a choice. There is a long list in front of me when I make choices. The Gorbals leisure centre came up like a flashing beacon. We must take a balanced view. I do not say that Queens Park or the Gorbals is my constituency—rather I regard Scotland as my constituency. I must look at the whole position and try to be fair and impartial in my judgment.
The hon. Member for Cathcart asked some questions. I visit many places. I cannot give an absolute commitment to visit Drumbrae. He asked me to give a pledge. Although I cannot give an


absolute commitment I shall give the matter serious consideration.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the previous votes on the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill. Those votes, in the view of the Labour Party, will preserve many jobs, create more pay packets and provide facilities for the community in the future. I am tempted to debate the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill again. That would be more

enjoyable to me, as a politician. However, I rest my case.
I thank the hon. Member for Cathcart for playing his part on the Front Bench. I assure the Opposition of my deepest consideration—I give no total commitment—for the Dumbrae community centre when the next allocation comes up.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to Twelve o'clock.